M 




I lass 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE NEGRO IN 
LITERATURE AND ART 







PHILLIS WHEATLEY 



The Negro 
in Literature and Art 

in the United States 

BY 

BENJAMIN BRAWLEY 

Author of "A Short Uistory of the American Negro," "History of 

Morehouse College," and "Richard Le Qallienne: 

A Study of His Poetry " 




NEW YORK 

DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
1918 



Copyright, 1918, by 
DnFPiELD & Co, «/ 



rl^/ -^■ 



^AR -8 1918 



v9 

! 



TO MY FATHER 
EDWARD MacKNIGHT BRAWLEY 

WITH THANKS FOR SEVERE TEACHING 
AND STIMULATING CRITICISM 



, 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAOB 

Preface xi 

I. The Negro Genius 3 

II. PniLLis Wheatley 10 

III. Paul Laurence Dunbar 33 

IV. Charles W. Chesnutt 45 

V. W. E. BURGHARDT Du Bois 50 

VI. William Stanley Braithwaite 56 

VII. Other Writers 65 

VIII. Orators. — Douglass and Washington ... 83 

IX. The Stage 97 

X. Painters. — Henry O. Tanner 103 

XI. Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller . . . 112 

XII. Music 125 

Appendix: 

1. The Neqro l\ American Fiction 145 

2. Study of Bibuoqkaphy 160 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Phillis Wheatlet Frontispiece 

Paul Laurence Dunbar Facing p. 34 



Charles W. Chesnutt . . . 

W. E. BURGHARDT Du BoiS . . 

William Stanley Braitowaite 
Henry O. Tanner .... 
Meta Warrick Fuller . . 
Harry T. Burleigh . . . ". 



46 

50 

56 

104 

112 

130 



PREFACE 

The present volume undertakes to treat 
somewhat more thoroughly than has ever be- 
fore been attempted the achievement of the 
Negro in the United States along Uterary and 
artistic lines, judging this by absolute rather 
than by partial or limited standards. The work 
is the result of studies in which I first became 
interested nearly ten years ago. In 1910 a 
booklet, ''The Negro in Literature and Art," 
appeared in Atlanta, privately printed. The 
little work contained only sixty pages. The 
reception accorded it, however, was even more 
cordial than I had hoped it might be, and the 
limited edition was soon exhausted. Its sub- 
stance, in condensed form, was used in 1913 
as the last chapter of ''A Short History of the 
American Negro," brought out by the Mac- 
millan Co. In the mean time, however, new 
books and magazine articles were constantly 
appearing, and my o^\^l judgment on more than 



Preface 

one point had changed; so that the time has 
seemed ripe for a more intensive review of the 
wliole field. To teachers who may be using 
the history as a text I hardly need to say 
that I should be pleased to have the present 
work supersede anything said in the last chap- 
ter of that volume. 

The first chapter, and those on Mr. Braith- 
waitc and IVIrs. Fuller, originally appeared in 
the Southern Workman. That on the Stage 
was a contribution to the Springfield Repub- 
lican; and the supplementary chapter is from 
the Dial. All are here reprinted with the kind 
consent of the owners of those periodicals. 
Much of the quoted matter is covered by copy- 
right . Thanks are especially due to Mr. Braith- 
waitc and Mr. J. W. Johnson for permission 
to use some of their poems, and to Dodd, 
Mead k Co., the publishers of the works of 
Dunbar. The bibhography is quite new. It 
is hoped that it may prove of service. 

Benjamin Bkawley. 

North Cambridge, August, 1917. 



THE NEGRO IN 
LITERATURE AND ART 



1 



i 

it 



THE NEGRO IN 
LITERATURE AND ART 



THE NEGRO GENIUS 

IN his lecture on ''The Poetic Principle," in 
leading down to his definition of poetry, 
Edgar Allan Poe has called attention to the 
three faculties, intellect, feeling, and will, and 
shown that poetry, that the whole realm of 
aesthetics in fact, is concerned primarily and 
solely with the second of these. Does it satisfy 
a sense of heautyf This is his sole test of a 
poem or of any work of art, the aim being 
neither to appeal to the intellect by satisfying 
the reason or inculcating truth, nor to appeal 
to the will by satisfying the moral sense or 
inculcating duty. 
The standard has often been criticised as 

3 



A The Negro in Literature and Art 

narrow; yet it embodies a large and funda- 
mental clement of truth. If in connection with 
it we study the Negro we shall find that two 
thin^^s are observable. One is that any dis- 
tinction so far won by a member of the race in 
America has been almost always in some one 
of the arts; and the other is that any influence 
wj far exerted by the Negro on American civ- 
ilization has been primarily in the field of 
aesthetics. To prove the point we may refer 
to a long line of beautiful singers, to the fervid 
oratory of Douglass, to the sensuous poetry of 
Dunbar, to the picturesque style of DuBois, 
to the mysticism of the paintings of Tanner, 
and to the elemental sculpture of Meta War- 
rick Fuller. E\en Booker Washington, most 
I)ractical of Americans, proves the point, the 
distinguishing finalities of his speeches being 
anecdote and brilliant concrete illustration. 

Everyone must have observed a striking 
characteristic of the homes of Negroes of the 
jK'asant class in tlie South. The instinct for 
benuty insists upon an outlet, and if one can 
find no better picture he will paste a circus 
poster or a flaring advertisement on the walls. 
Very few liomes have not at least a geranium 



The Negro Genius 5 

on the windowsill or a rosebush in the garden. 
If also we look at the matter conversely we 
shall find that those things which are most 
picturesque make to the Negro the readiest 
appeal. Red is his favorite color simply be- 
cause it is the most pronounced of all colors. 
Goethe's ''Faust" can hardly be said to be a 
play primarily designed for the galleries. One 
never sees it fail, however, that in any Southern 
city this play will fill the gallery with the so- 
called lower class of Negro people, who would 
never think of going to another play of its 
class, but different; and the applause never 
leaves one in doubt as to the reasons for 
Goethe's popularity. It is the suggestiveness 
of the love scenes, the red costume of Mephis- 
topheles, the electrical effects, and the rain of 
fire that give the thrill desired — all pure melo- 
drama of course. ''Faust" is a good show as 
well as a good play. 

In some of our communities Negroes are 
frequently known to "get happy" in church. 
Now a sermon on the rule of faith or the plan 
of salvation is never known to awaken such 
ecstasy. This rather accompanies a vivid por- 
trayal of the beauties of heaven, with the 



6 The Negro in Literature and Art 

walls of ja.sper, the angels with palms in their 
hands, and {aitmmum honum!) the feast of milk 
and honey. And just here is the dilemma so 
often faced by the occupants of pulpits in 
Nogro churches. Do the people want scholarly 
training? Very often the cultured preacher 
will be inclined to answer in the negative. Do 
tlicN- want rant and shouting? Such a standard 
fails at once to satisfy the ever-increasing in- 
telligence of the audience itself. The trouble 
is that the educated minister too often leaves 
out of account the basic psychology of his 
audience. That preacher who will ultimately 
be the most successful with a Negro congre- 
gation will be the one who to scholarship 
and culture can best join brilliant imagination 
and fervid rhetorical expression. When all of 
these qualities are brought together in their 
finest proportion the effect is irresistible. 

Crithering up the threads of our discussion 
8(> far, we find that there is constant striving 
on the part of the Negro for beautiful or strik- 
ing effect, that those things which are most 
picturesciue make the readiest appeal to his 
nature, and that in the sphere of religion he 
receives with most appreciation those dis- 



The Negro Genius 7 

courses which are most imaginative in quaUty. 
In short, so far as the last point is concerned, 
it is not too much to assert that the Negro 
is thrilled not so much by the moral as by the 
artistic and pictorial elements in religion. 

But there is something deeper than the sen- 
suousness of beauty that makes for the possi- 
bihties of the Negro in the realm of the arts, 
and that is the soul of the race. The wail of 
the old melodies and the plaintive quality that 
is ever present in the Negro voice are but the 
reflection of a background of tragedy. No 
race can rise to the greatest heights of art 
until it has yearned and suffered. The Rus- 
sians are a case in point. Such has been their 
background in oppression and striving that 
their literature and art are to-day marked by 
an unmistakable note of power. The same 
future beckons to the American Negro. There 
is something very elemental about the heart 
of the race, something that finds its origin in 
the African forest, in the sighing of the night- 
wind, and in the falling of the stars. There is 
something grim and stern about it all, too, 
something that speaks of the lash, of the child 
torn from its mother's bosom, of the dead body 



S The Negro in Literature and Art 

TiiUUvd witli hullets and swinging all night 
from a linil) by the roadside. 

So far we have elaborated a theory. Let 
us not be misunderstood. We do not mean to 
siiy tluit the Negro can not rise to great dis- 
tinct ion in any sphere other than the arts. 
Hi' hiu^ already made a noteworthy beginning 
in pure scholarship and invention; especially 
have some of the younger men done brilliant 
work in science. We do mean to say, however, 
tluit every race has its peculiar genius, and that, 
so far as we can at present judge, the Negro, with 
all his manual labor, is destined to reach his 
prat est heights in the field of the artistic. 
But the impulse needs to be watched. Roman- 
ticism very soon becomes unhealthy. The 
Negro has great gifts of voice and ear and 
soul; but so far much of his talent has not 
soared above the stage of vaudeville. This is 
due most largely of course to economic in- 
stal)ility. It is the call of patriotism, how- 
ever, that America should realize that the 
Negro has peculiar gifts which need all possible 
cultivation and which will some day add to 
the glory of the country. Already his music 
w recognized as the most distinctive that the 



The Negro Genius 9 

United States has yet produced. The possi- 
bilities of the race in Hterature and oratory, in 
sculpture and painting, are illimitable. 

Along some such lines as those just indi- 
cated it will be the aim of the following pages 
to study the achievement of the Negro in the 
United States of America. First we shall 
consider in order five representative writers 
who have been most constantly guided by 
standards of literary excellence. We shall then 
pass on to others whose literary work has been 
noteworthy, and to those who have risen above 
the crowd in oratory, painting, sculpture, or 
music. We shall constantly have to remember 
that those here remarked are only a few of 
the many who have longed and striven for 
artistic excellence. Some have pressed on to 
the goal of their ambition; but no one can give 
the number of those who, under hard conditions, 
have yearned and died in silence. 



II 

PHILLIS WHEATLEY 

ON one of the slave ships that came to 
the harbor of Boston in the year 1761 
was a little Negro gu-l of very delicate figure. 
The vessel on which she arrived came from 
Senegal. With her dirty face and unkempt 
liair ^<he must indeed have been a pitiable 
object in the eyes of would-be purchasers. 
The hardships of the voyage, however, had 
gi\on an unusual brightness to the eye of the 
child, and at least one w^oman had discernment 
enough to appreciate her real worth. Mrs. 
Susannah \Mieatley, wife of John Wheatley, 
a tailor, desired to possess a girl whom she 
might train to be a special servant for her de- 
clining years, as the slaves already in her 
liome were advanced in age and growing feeble. 
.\ttracted by the gentle demeanor of the child 
in (}uostion, she bought her, took her home, 
and gave her the name of PhilHs. When the 

10 



\^ 



Phillis Wheatley 11 



young slave became known to the world it 
was customary for her to use also the name 
of the family to which she belonged. She 
always spelled her Christian name P-h-i-1-l-i-s. 

Phillis Wheatley was born very probably in 
1753. The poem on Whitefield published in 
1770 said on the title-page th.at she was seven- 
teen years old. When she came to Boston she 
was shedding her front teeth. Her memory of 
her childhood in Africa was always vague. 
She knew only that her mother -poured out 
water before the rising sun. This was probably 
a rite of heathen worship. 

Mrs. Wheatley was a woman of unusual re- 
finement. Her home was well known to the 
people of fashion and culture in Boston, and 
King Street in which she lived was then as 
noted for its residences as it is now, under the 
name of State Street, famous for its commercial 
and banking houses. When Phillis entered 
the Wheatley home the family consisted of 
four persons, Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley, their 
son Nathaniel, and their daughter Mary. 
Nathaniel and Mary were twins, born May 4, 
1743. Mrs. Wheatley was also the mother of 
three other children, Sarah, John, and Susan- 



If The Negro in Literature and Art 

iiah; but all of these died in early youth. 
Mary ^^^leatley, accordingly, was the only 
dauglitiT of the family that Phillis knew to 
any extent, and she was eighteen years old 
when her mother brought the child to the house, 
that is, just a little more than ten years older 
tlian Phillis. 

In her new home the girl showed signs of 
remarkable talent. Her childish desire for 
i'\'])rcssion found an outlet in the figures which 
she drew with charcoal or chalk on the walls 
of the house. Mrs. Wlieatley and her daughter 
became so interested in the ease with which 
she a.ssimilated knowledge that they began to 
teach her. Within sixteen months from the 
time of her arrival in Boston Phillis was able 
l<> road fluently the most difficult parts of the 
Hibie. From the first her mistress strove to 
cultivate in every possible way her naturally 
l)i()us disposition, and diligently gave her in- 
st met ion in the Scriptures and in morals. 
In course of time, thanks especially to the 
teaching of Mary Wheatley, the learning of 
the young student came to consist of a little 
astronf)my, some ancient and modern geog- 
raphy, a little ancient history, a fair knowledge 



Phillis Wheatley IS 

of the Bible, and a thoroughly appreciative 
acquaintance with the most important Latin 
classics, especially the works of Virgil and 
Ovid. She was proud of the fact that Terence 
was at least of African birth. She became pro- 
ficient in grammar, developing a conception of 
style from practice rather than from theory. 
Pope's translation of Homer was her favorite 
English classic. If in the light of twentieth 
century opportunity and methods these at- 
tainments seem in no wise remarkable, one 
must remember the disadvantages under which 
not only Phillis Wheatley, but all the women 
of her time, labored; and recall that in any 
case her attainments would have marked her 
as one of the most highly educated young 
women in Boston. 

While Phillis was trying to make the most 
of her time with her studies, she was also seek- 
ing to develop herself in other ways. She 
had not been studying long before she began 
to feel that she too would like to make verses. 
Alexander Pope was still an important force 
in English literature, and the young student 
became his ready pupil. She was about four- 
teen years old when she seriously began to 



/,; The Negro in Literature and Art 

cultivate her poetic talent; and one of the 
very earliest, and from every standpoint one 
of the most interesting of her efforts is the 
pathetic little juvenile poem, ''On Being 
Brought from iVfrica to America:" 

Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land, 
Taught my benighted soul to understand 
That tlierc's a God— that there's a Saviour too: 
Once I rcdemi^tion neither sought nor knew. 
Some view our sable race with scornful eye — 
"Their colour is a diabohc dye." 
Remember, Clu-istians, Negroes black as Cain 
May be refined, and join th' angelic train. 

Meanwhile, the life of Phillis was altogether 
tlilTerent from that of the other slaves of the 
household. No hard labor was required of 
her, though she did the lighter work, such as 
dusting a room or polishing a table. Gradually 
she came to be regarded as a daughter and 
companion rather than as a slave. As she 
wrote poetry, more and more she proved to 
have a talent for writing occasional verse. 
Whenever any unusual event, such as a death, 
occurred in any family of the circle of Mrs. 
\\licatley's acquaintance, she would wi'ite 
lines on the same. She thus came to be re- 



Phillis Wheatley 15 

garded as "a kind of poet-laureate in the 
domestic circles of Boston." She was frequently 
invited to the homes of people to whom Mrs. 
Wheatley had introduced her, and was re- 
garded with peculiar interest and esteem, on 
account both of her singular position and her 
lovable nature. In her own room at home 
Phillis was specially permitted to have heat 
and a light, because her constitution was deli- 
cate, and in order that she might write down 
her thoughts as they came to her, rather than 
trust them to her fickle memory. 

Such for some years was the course of the 
life of Phillis Wheatley. The year 1770 saw 
the earliest publication of one of her poems. 
On the first printed page of this edition one 
might read the following announcement: "A 
Poem, By Phillis, a Negro Girl, in Boston, On 
the Death of the Reverend George Whitefield." 
In the middle of the page is a quaint represen- 
tation of the dead man in his coffin, on the 
top of which one might with difficulty decipher, 
*'G, W. Ob. 30 Sept. 1770, Aet. 56." The 
poem is addressed to the Countess of Hunt- 
ingdon, whom Whitefield had served as chap- 
lain, and to the orphan children of Georgia 



Id The Negro in Literature and Art 

wliom he had befriended. It takes up in the 
original less than four pages of large print. It 
wa.s revised for the 1773 edition of the poems. 

In 1771 the first real sorrow of Phillis Wheat- 
Icy came to her. On January 31st Mary 
\\'licatlcy left the old home to become the wife 
of Rev. John Latlirop, pastor of the Second 
C'huj-ch in Boston. Tliis year is important for 
another event. On August 18th 'Thillis, the 
servant of Mr. "\Mieatley," became a communi- 
cant of the Old South Meeting House in Boston. 
We are informed that ''her membership in 
Old South was an exception to the rule that 
slaves were not baptized into the church." At 
that time the church was without a regular 
minister, though it had lately received the ex- 
cellent teaching of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Sewell. 

This was a troublous time in the history of 
Boston. Already the storm of the Revolution 
was gathering. The period was one of vexa- 
tion on the part of the slaves and their masters 
as well as on that of the colonies and England. 
The argument on the side of the slaves was 
tlmt, a.s the colonies were still English terri- 
tory, they were technically free, Lord Mans- 
field liaving handed do\\Ti the decision in 1772 



Phillis Wheatley 17 

that as soon as a slave touched the soil of 
England he became free. Certainly Phillis 
must have been a girl of unusual tact to be 
able under such conditions to hold so securely 
the esteem and affection of her many friends. 
About this time, as we learn from her cor- 
respondence, her health began to fail. Almost 
all of her letters that are preserved were writ- 
ten to Obour Tanner, a friend living in New- 
port, R. I. Just when the two young women 
became acquainted is not known. Obour 
Tanner survived until the fourth decade of 
the next century. It was to her, then, still a 
young woman, that on July 19, 1772, Phillis 
wrote from Boston as follows: 

My Dear Friend, — I received your kind epistle a few 
days ago; much disappointed to hear that you had not 
received my answer to your first letter. I have been in 
a very poor state of health all the past winter and spring, 
and now reside in the country for the benefit of its more 
wholesome air. I came to town this morning to spend the 
Sabbath with my master and mistress. Let me be inter- 
ested in your prayers that God will bless to me the means 
used for my recovery, if agreeable to his holy will. 

By the spring of 1773 the condition of the 
health of Phillis was such as to give her friends 



IS The Negro in Literature and Art 

much concern. The family physician advised 
tliat she try the air of the sea. As Nathaniel 
^^^lcatley was just then going to England, it 
was decided that she should accompany him. 
The two sailed in May. The poem, ''A Fare- 
well to America," is dated May 7, 1773. It 
was addressed to ''S. W.," that is, Mrs. Wheat- 
ley. Before she left America, Phillis was 
formally manumitted. 

The poem on Whitefield served well as an 
introduction to the Countess of Huntingdon. 
Through the influence of this noblewoman 
Pliillis met other ladies, and for the summer the 
child of the wilderness was the pet of the 
society people of England. Now it was that 
a peculiar gift of Phillis "\\Tieatley shone to 
advantage. To the recommendations of a 
strange history, ability to write verses, and 
the influence of kind friends, she added the 
accomplishment of brilliant conversation. 
Presents were showered upon her. One that 
luis been preserved is a copy of the magnificent 
1770 Glasgow folio edition of "Paradise Lost," 
given to her by Brook Watson, Lord Mayor 
of London. This book is now in the library 
of Harvard University. At the top of one of 



Phillis Wheatley 19 

the first pages, in the handwriting of Phillis 
Wheatley, are these words: ''Mr. Brook Wat- 
son to Phillis Wheatley, London, July, 1773." 
At the bottom of the same page, in the hand- 
writing of another, are these words: ''This 
book was given by Brook Watson formerly 
Lord Mayor of London to Phillis Wheatley 
& after her death was sold in payment of her 
husband's debts. It is now presented to the 
Library of Harvard University at Cambridge, 
by Dudley L. Pickman of Salem. March, 
1824." 

Phillis had not arrived in England at the 
most fashionable season, however. The ladies 
of the circle of the Countess of Huntingdon 
desired that she remain long enough to be 
presented at the court of George HI. An acci- 
dent — the illness of Mrs. Wheatley — prevented 
the introduction. This lady longed for the 
presence of her old companion, and Phillis 
could not be persuaded to delay her return. 
Before she went back to Boston, however, ar- 
rangements were made for the publication of 
her volume, "Poems on Various Subjects, Re- 
ligious and Moral," of which more must be 
said. While the book does not of course con- 



so The Negro in Literature and Art 

tain the later scattered poems, it is the only 
collection ever brought together by Phillis 
WTieatley, and the book by which she is known. 

The visit to England marked the highest 
point in the career of the young author. Her 
piety and faitli were now to be put to their 
se\'ere.st test, and her noble bearing under 
hardship and disaster must forever speak to 
her credit. In much of the sorrow that came 
to her she was not alone, for the period of the 
Revolution was one of general distress. 

Phillis remained in England barely four 
months. In October she was back in Boston, 
'riuit she was little improved may be seen 
from the letter to Obour Tanner, bearing date 
the 30th of this month: 

I hear of your welfare with pleasure; but this acquaints 
you tlmt I am at present indisposed by a cold, and since 
my arrival have been visited by the asthma. 

A postscript to this letter reads: 

The young man by whom this is handed to you seems 
U> be a very clever man, knows you very well, and is 
vcrj' complaisant and agreeable. 

The "young man" was John Peters, after- 
wards to be her husband. 



Phillis Wheatley 21 

A great sorrow came to Phillis in the death 
on March 3, 1774, of her best friend, Mrs. 
Wheatley, then in her sixty-fifth year. How 
she felt about this event is best set forth in 
her own words in a letter addressed to Ob our 
Tanner at Newport under date March 21, 
1774: 

Dear Obour, — I received your obliging letter en- 
closed in your Reverend Pastor's and handed me by his 
son. I have lately met with a great trial in the death of 
my mistress; let us imagine the loss of a parent, sister 
or brother, the tenderness of all were united in her. I was 
a poor little outcast and a stranger when she took me in; 
not only into her house, but I presently became a sharer 
in her most tender affections. I was treated by her more 
like her child than her servant; no opportunity was left 
unimproved of giving me the best of advice; but in terms 
how tender! how engaging! This I hope ever to keep in 
remembrance. Her exemplary life was a greater monitor 
than all her precepts and instructions; thus we may ob- 
serve of how much greater force example is than instruc- 
tion. To alleviate our sorrows we had the satisfaction 
to see her depart in inexpressible raptures, earnest long- 
ings, and impatient thirstings for the upper courts of the 
Lord. Do, my dear friend, remember me and this family 
in your closet, that this afflicting dispensation may be 
sanctified to us. I am very sorry to hear that you are 
indisposed, but hope this will find you in better health. 
I have been unwell the greater part of the winter, but am 
much better as the spring approaches. Pray excuse my 



£2 The Negro in Literature and Art 

not writinR you so long before, for I have been so busy 
Litoly that I could not find leisure. I shall send the 5 
lKK)ks you wrote for, the first convenient opportunity; 
if you want more they shall be ready for you. I am very 
aflfectionatcly your friend, 

Phillis Wheatley. 

Mter the death of Mrs. Wheatley Phillis 
seems not to have lived regularly at the old 
home; at least one of her letters written in 1775 
was sent from Providence. For Mr. Wheatley 
the house must have been a sad one; his daugh- 
ter was married and living in her own home, his 
son was living abroad, and his wife was dead. 
It was in this darkening period of her life, 
however, that a very pleasant experience came 
to Phillis ^Vheatley. This was her reception 
at the hands of George Washington. In 1775, 
while the siege of Boston was in progress, she 
wrote a letter to the distinguished soldier, en- 
closing a complimentary poem. Washington 
later replied as follows: 

Cambridge, Feb. 2, 1776. 
Mi88 Phillis,— Your favor of the 26th of October did 
not reach my hand till the middle of December. Time 
cnouKli, you say, to have given an answer ere this. 
Ciraiit(>(|. But a variety of important occurrences con- 
tinually interposing to distract the mind and to withdraw 



Phillis Wheatley 23 

the attention, I hope, will apologize for the delay and 
plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect. 
I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, 
in the elegant lines you enclosed, and however undeserving 
I may be of such encomium and panegyi'ic, the style and 
manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents, 
in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I 
would have published the poem, had I not been apprehen- 
sive that while I only meant to give the world this new 
instance of your genius, I might have incurred the im- 
putation of vanity. This and nothing else determined 
me not to give it place in the pubUc prints. If you should 
ever come to Cambridge or near headquarters, I shall be 
happy to see a person so favored by the muses, and to 
whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her 
dispensations. 

I am, with great respect. 

Your obedient humble servant, 
George Washington. 

Not long afterwards Phillis accepted the 
invitation of the General and was received in 
Cambridge with marked courtesy by Wash- 
ington and his officers. 

The Wheatley home was finally broken up 
by the death of Mr. John Wheatley, March 
12, 1778, at the age of seventy-two. After 
this event Phillis lived for a short time with 
a friend of Mrs. Wheatley, and then took an 
apartment and lived by hergelf. By April she 



2'4 The Negro in Literature and Art 

liad yiekli'tl to the blandishments of John 
Peters sufhciently to be persuaded to become 
his wife. Tliis man is variously reported to 
have been a baker, a barber, a grocer, a doctor, 
and a lawyer. With all of these professions 
and occupations, however, he seems not to 
have possessed the ability to make a living. 
He wore a wig, sported a cane, and generally 
felt liimself superior to labor. Bereft of old 
friends as she was, however, sick and lonely, 
it is not surprising that when love and care 
seemed thus to present themselves the heart 
of the woman yielded. It w^as not long before 
she realized that she was married to a ne'er- 
do-well at a time when even an industrious 
man found it hard to make a living. The 
course of the Revolutionary War made it 
more and more difficult for people to secure 
the bare necessaries of life, and the horrors 
of Valley Forge were but an aggravation of 
the general distress. The year was further 
made memorable by the death of Mary Wheat- 
1«'>-. Mrs. Lathrop, on the 24th of September. 

Wlicn Boston fell into the hands of the 
Britisli, the inhabitants fled in all directions. 
Mrs. Peters accompanied her husband to Wil- 



Phillis Wheatley 25 

mington, Delaware, where she suffered much 
from poverty. After the evacuation of Boston by 
the British troops, she returned thither. A 
niece of Mrs. Wheatley, whose son had been 
slain in battle, received her under her own 
roof. This woman was a widow, was not 
wealthy, and kept a little school in order to 
support herself. Mrs. Peters and the two 
children whose mother she had become re- 
mained with her for six weeks. Then Peters 
came for his wife, having provided an apart- 
ment for her. Just before her departure for 
Wilmington, Mrs. Peters entrusted her papers 
to a daughter of the lady who received her on 
her return from that place. After her death 
these were demanded by Peters as the property 
of his wife. They were of course promptly 
given to him. Some years afterwards he re- 
turned to the South, and nothing is known of 
what became of the manuscripts. 

The conduct of her husband estranged Mrs. 
Peters from her old acquaintances, and her 
pride kept her from informing them of her 
distress. After the war, however, one of Mrs. 
Wheatley's relatives hunted her out and found 
that her two children were dead, and that a 



S6 The Negro in Literature and Art 

third that had been bom was sick. This 
seems to have been in the winter of 1783-84. 
Nathaniel \Mieatley, who had been livmg in 
lx)ndon, died in the summer of 1783. In 1784 
John Peters suffered hnprisonment in jail. 
After his liberation he worked as a journeyman 
l)aker, later attempted to practice law, and 
finally pretended to be a physician. His wife, 
meanwhile, earned her board by drudgery in 
a cheap lodging-house on the west side of the 
town. Her disease made rapid progress, and 
she died December 5, 1784. Her last baby 
died and was buried with her. No one of her 
old acquaintances seems to have known of her 
death. On the Thursday after this event, 
however, the following notice appeared in the 
Independent Chronicle: 

Last Lord's Daj--, died Mrs, Phillis Peters (formerly 
Pliillis Whcatley), aged thirty-one, known to the world 
by her celebrated miscellaneous poems. Her funeral is 
to be this afternoon, at four o'clock, from the house lately 
improved l)y Mr. Todd, nearly opposite Dr. Bulfinch's at 
West Boston, where her friends and acquaintances are 
desired to attend. 

The house referred to was situated on or 
near the present site of the Revere House in 



Phillis Wheatley 27 

Bowdoin Square. The exact site of the grave 
of PhilHs Wheatley is not known. 

At the time when she was most talked about, 
Phillis Wheatley was regarded as a prodigy, 
appearing as she did at a time when the achieve- 
ment of the Negro in hterature and art was 
still negligible. Her vogue, however, was more 
than temporary, and the 1793, 1802, and 1816 
editions of her poems found ready sale. In 
the early years of the last century her verses 
were frequently to be found in school readers. 
From the first, however, there were those who 
discounted her poetry. Thomas Jefferson, for 
instance, said that it was beneath the dignity 
of criticism. If after 1816 interest in her work 
declined, it was greatly revived at the time of 
the anti-slavery agitation, when anything in- 
dicating unusual capacity on the part of the 
Negro was received with eagerness. When 
Margaretta Matilda Odell of Jamaica Plain, a 
descendant of the Wheatley family, repubhshed 
the poems with a memoir in 1834, there was 
such a demand for the book that two more 
editions were called for within the next three 
years. For a variety of reasons, especially an 
increasing race-consciousness on the part of 



2S The Negro in Literature and Art 

the Ncpro, interest in her work has greatly 
increased within the last decade, and as copies 
of cai-ly editions had within recent years be- 
come so rare as to be practically inaccessible, 
the reprint in 1909 of the volume of 1773 by 
the A. M. E. Book Concern in Philadelphia 
was especially welcome. 

Only two poems wTitten by Phillis Wheatley 
after her marriage are in existence. These are 
"Liberty and Peace," and ''An Elegy Sacred 
to the IMemory of Dr. Samuel Cooper." Both 
were published in 1784. Of ''Poems on Various 
Subjects," the following advertisement appeared 
in the Boston Gazette for January 24, 1774: 

This Day Published 

Adorn'd with an Elegant Engraving of the Author, 

(Price 3s. 4d. L. M. Bound,) 

POEMS 

on various subjects, — Rehgious and Moral, 

By PhiUis Wheatley, a Negro Gkl. 

Sold by Mess's Cox & Berry, 

at their Store, in King-Street, Boston. 

N. B. — The subscribers are requested to apply for their 

copies. 

The little octavo volume of 124 pages con- 
tains 39 poems. One of these, however, must 



Phillis Wheatley 29 

be excluded from the enumeration, as it is 
simply ''A Rebus by I. B.," which serves as 
the occasion of Phillis Wheatley's poem, the 
answer to it. Fourteen of the poems are 
elegiac, and at least six others are occasional. 
Two are paraphrases from the Bible. We are 
thus left with sixteen poems to represent the 
best that Phillis Wlieatley had produced by 
the time she was twenty years old. One of 
the longest of these is ''Niobe in Distress for 
Her Children Slain by Apollo, from Ovid's 
Metamorphoses, Book VI, and from a View 
of the Painting of Mr. Richard Wilson." 
This poem contains two interesting examples 
of personification (neither of which seems to 
be drawn from Ovid), ''fate portentous whis- 
tling in the air," and ''the feather'd vengeance 
quiv'ring in his hands," though the point 
might easily be made that these are little more 
than a part of the pseudo-classic tradition. 
The poem, "To S. M., a Young African Painter, 
on seeing his works," was addressed to Scipio 
Moorhead, a young man who exhibited some 
talent for drawing and who was a servant of 
the Rev. John Moorhead of Boston. From 
the poem we should infer that one of his sub- 



30 The Negro in Literature and Art 

jects was the story of Damon and Pythias. 
Of prime importance are the two or three 
poems of autobiographical interest. We have 
already remarked ''On Being Brought from 
Africa to America." In the lines addressed to 
William, Earl of Dartmouth, the young woman 
spoke again from her personal experience. Im- 
portant also in this comiection is the poem 
"Oil Vh'tue," with its plea: 

Attend me, Virtue, thro' my youthful years! 
O leave me not to the false jo3^s of time! 
But guide my steps to endless life and bliss. 

One would suppose that Phillis Wheatley would 
make of "An Hymn to Humanity" a fairly 
strong piece of work. It is typical of the re- 
straint under which she labored that this is 
one of the most conventional things in the 
volume. All critics agree, however, that the 
strongest lines in the book are those entitled 
"On Imagmation." This effort is more sus- 
tained than the others, and it is the leading 
poem that Edmund Clarence Stedman chose 
to represent Phillis Wheatley in his "Library 
of American Literatiu-e." The following lines 
are representative of its quality: 



Phillis Wheatley 31 

Imagination! Who can sing thy force? 
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course? 
Soaring through air to find the bright abode, 
Th' empyreal palace of the thundering God, 
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, 
And leave the rolling universe behind: 
From star to star the mental optics rove. 
Measure the skies, and range the realms above; 
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole. 
Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul. 

Hardly beyond this is "Liberty and Peace," 
the best example of the later verse. The poem 
is too long for inclusion here, but may be 
found in Duyckinck's '^ Cyclopedia of American 
Literature," and Heartman and Schomburg's 
collected edition of the Poems and Letters. 

It is unfortunate that, imitating Pope, 
Phillis Wheatley more than once fell into his 
pitfalls. Her diction — '' fleecy care," "vital 
breath," "feather'd race" — is distinctly pseudo- 
classic. The construction is not always clear; 
for instance, in the poem, "To Maecenas," 
there are three distinct references to Virgil, 
when grammatically the poetess seems to be 
speaking of three different men. Then, of 
course, any young writer working under the 
influence of Pope and his school would feel a 



S3 The Negro in Literature and Art 

sense of repression. If Phillis Wlieatley had 
come on the scene forty years later, when the 
romantic WTiters had given a new tone to 
EngHsh poetr}--, she would undoubtedly have 
been much greater. Even as it was, however, 
she made her mark, and her place in the history 
of American literature, though not a large one, 
is secure. 

Hers was a great soul. Her ambition knew 
no bounds, her thirst for knowledge was in- 
satiable, and she triumphed over the most ad- 
verse circumstances. A child of the wilderness 
and a slave, by her grace and culture she satis- 
fied the conventionaHties of Boston and of 
England. Her brilliant conversation was 
equaled only by her modest demeanor. Every- 
thing about her was refined. More and more 
as one studies her life he becomes aware of her 
sterling Christian character. In a dark day 
she caught a glimpse of the eternal light, and 
it was meet that the first Negro woman in 
American literature should be one of unerring 
piety and the highest of literary ideals. 



Ill 

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR 

INCOMPARABLY the foremost exponent in 
verse of the Ufe and character of the Negro 
people has been Paul Laurence Dunbar. This 
gifted young poet represented perfectly the 
lyric and romantic quality of the race, with 
its moodiness, its abandon, its love of song, 
and its pathetic irony, and his career has been 
the inspiration of thousands of the young men 
and women whose problems he had to face, 
and whose aspirations he did so much to 
realize. 

Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio, June 
27, 1872. His parents were uneducated but 
earnest hard-working people, and throughout 
his life the love of the poet for his mother was 
ever a dominating factor. From very early 
years Dunbar made little attempts at rhyming; 

but what he afterwards called his first poetical 

33 



S4 The Negro in Literature and Art 

achievement was his recitation of some original 
verses at a Sunday School Easter celebration 
when he was thirteen years old. He attended 
the Steele High School m Dayton, where he 
was the only Negro student in his class; and 
by reason of his modest and yet magnetic 
personality, he became very popular with his 
schoolmates. In his second year he became a 
member of the literary society of the school, 
afterwards became president of the same, as 
well as editor of The High School Times, a 
monthly student publication, and on his com- 
pletion of the course in 1891 he composed the 
song for his class. Somewhat irregularly for 
the next two or three years Dunbar continued 
his studies, but he never had the advantage 
of a regular college education. On leaving the 
high school, after vainly seeking for something 
better, he accepted a position as elevator boy, 
working for four dollars a week. In 1893, at the 
Wcjrld's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he 
was given a position by Frederick Douglass, 
who was in charge of the exhibit from Hayti. 
"Oak and Ivy" appeared in 1893, and ''Ma- 
jors and Minors" in 1895. These little books 
were privately printed; Dunbar had to assume 




PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR 



i7 



ij. 
)€ 



Paul Laurence Dunbar 35 

full responsibility for selling them, and not 
unnaturally he had many bitter hours of dis- 
couragement. Asking people to buy his verses 
grated on his sensitive nature, and he once 
declared to a friend that he would never sell 
another book. Sometimes, however, he suc- 
ceeded beyond his highest hopes, and gradu- 
ally, with the assistance of friends, chief among 
whom was Dr. H. A. Tobey, of Toledo, the 
young poet came into notice as a reader of his 
verses. William Dean Howells wrote a full- 
page review of his poems in the issue of Harp- 
er^s Weekly that contained an account of Will- 
iam McKinley's first nomination for the presi- 
dency. Dunbar was now fairly launched upon 
his larger fame, and '^ Lyrics of Lowly Life," 
published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1896, in- 
troduced him to the wider reading public. 
This book is deservedly the poet's best known. 
It contained the richest work of his youth 
and was really never surpassed. In 1897 Dun- 
bar enhanced his reputation as a reader of 
his own poems by a visit to England. About 
this time he was very busy, writing numerous 
poems and magazine articles, and meeting 
with a success that was so much greater than 



36 The Negro in Literature and Art 

that of most of the poets of the day that it 
became a vogue. In October, 1897, through 
the influence of Robert G. Ingersoll, he secured 
employment as an assistant in the reading 
room of the Library of Congress, Washington; 
but he gave up this position after a year, for 
the confinement and his late work at night on 
his own account were making rapid inroads 
upon his health. On March 6, 1898, Dunbar 
was married to Alice Ruth Moore, of New 
Orleans, who also had become prominent as 
a wTiter. Early in 1899 he went South, visit- 
ing Tuskegee and other schools, and giving 
many readings. Later in the same year he 
went to Colorado in a vain search for health. 
Books were now appearing in rapid succession, 
short story collections and novels as well as 
poems. ''The Uncalled," written in London, 
reflected the poet's thought of entering the 
ministry. It was followed by "The Love of 
Landry," a Colorado story; "The Fanatics," 
and "The Sport of the Gods." Collections of 
short stories were, "Folks from Dixie," "The 
Strength of Gideon," "In Old Plantation Days," 
and "The Heart of Happy Hollow." Volumes 
of verse were "Lyrics of the Hearthside," 



Paul Laurence Dunbar 37 

"Lyrics of Love and Laughter," "Lyrics of 
Sunshine and Shadow," as well as several 
specially illustrated volumes. Dunbar bought 
a home in Dayton, where he lived with his 
mother. His last years were a record of sin- 
cere friendships and a losing fight against 
disease. He died February 9, 1906. He was 
only thirty-three, but he "had existed millions 
of years." 

Unless his novels are considered as forming /\ 
a distinct class, Dunbar's work falls naturally 
into three divisions: the poems in classic 
English, those in dialect, and the stories in 
prose. It was his work in the Negro dialect 
that was his distinct contribution to American ' 
literature. That this was not his desire may 
be seen from the eight lines entitled, "The 
Poet," in which he longed for success in the 
singing of his "deeper notes" and spoke of his 
dialect as "a jingle in a broken tongue." Any 
criticism of Dunbar's classic English verse will 
have to reckon with the following poems: 
"Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary 
Eyes," "The Poet and His Song," "Life," 
"Promise and Fulfillment," "Ships That Pass 
in the Night," and "October." In the pure 



3S The Negro in Literature and Art 

flow of lyrical verse the poet rarely surpassed 
his early lines:* 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, 

How questioneth the soul that other soul — 
The inner sense which neither cheats nor lies. 

But self exposes unto self, a scroll 
Full writ with all life's acts unwise or wise, 

In characters indelible and known; 
So, trembling with the shock of sad surprise, 

The soul doth view its awful self alone. 
Ere sleeps comes down to soothe the weary eyes. 



It 



The Poet and his Song" is also distinguished 
for its simplicity and its Ijo-ic quality: 

A song is but a little thing. 
And yet what joy it is to sing! 
In hours of toil it gives me zest, 
And when at eve I long for rest; 
When cows come home along the bars. 

And in the fold I hear the bell, 
As night, the Shepherd, herds his stars, 

I smg my song, and aU is well. 

• • • • • • 

Sometimes the sun, unkindly hot, 
My garden makes a desert spot; 

* As stated in the Preface, we are under obligations to 
Dodd, Mead & Co. for permission to use the quotations from 
Dunbar. These are covered by copyright by this firm, as 
foIIowH: "Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes," 
"The Poet and his Song," and "Life," 1896; Lullaby," 1899; 
and "Compensation," 1905. 



Paul Laurence Dunbar 39 

Sometimes a blight upon the tree 
Takes all the fruit away from me; 
And then with throes of bitter pain 

Rebellious passions rise and swell; 
But life is more than fruit or grain, 

And so I sing, and all is well. 

The two stanzas entitled "Life" have probably 
been quoted more than any other lines written 
by the poet: 

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, 
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in, 
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, 
And never a laugh but the moans come double; 
And that is life. 

A crust and a corner that love makes precious. 
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us; 
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after. 
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter; 
And that is hfe. 

''Promise and Fulfillment" was especially ad- 
mired by Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, who 
frequently recited it with never-failing ap- 
plause. Of the poet's own reading of ''Ships 
that Pass in the Night" on one occasion, 
Brand Whitlock wrote: ''That last evening 
he recited — oh! what a voice he had — his 
'Ships that Pass in the Night.' I can hear 



Jfi The Negro in Literature and Art 

him now and see the expression on his fine 
face as he said, 'Passing! Passing!' It was 
prophetic." 

Other pieces, no more distinguished in 
poetic quahty, are of special biographical in- 
terest. ''Robert Gould Shaw" was the ex- 
pression of pessimism as to the Negro's future 
in America. "To Louise" was addressed to 
the 5'^oung daughter of Dr. Tobey, who, on 
one occasion, when the poet was greatly de- 
pressed, in the simple way of a child cheered 
him by her gift of a rose. "The Monk's Walk" 
reflects the poet's thought of being a preacher. 
Finally, there is the swan song, "Compensa- 
tion," contributed to Lippincotfs, eight ex- 
quisite lines: 

Because I had loved so deeply, 

Because I had loved so long, 
God in his great compassion 

Gave me the gift of song. 

Because I have loved so vainly, 
And sung with such faltering breath, 

The Master in infinite mercy 
Offers the boon of Death. 

The dialect poems suffer by quotation, being 
artistic primarily as wholes. Of these, by com- 



Paul Laurence Dunbar 4i 

mon consent, the masterpiece is, ''When Ma- 
lindy Sings," a poem inspired by the singing 
of the poet's mother. Other pieces in dialect 
that have proved unusually successful, espe- 
cially as readings, are ''The Rivals," "A Co- 
quette Conquered," "The 01' Tunes," "A 
Corn-Song," "When de Co'n Pone's Hot," 
"How Lucy Backslid," "The Party," "At 
Candle-Lightin' Time," "Angelina," "Whis- 
tling Sam," "Two Little Boots," and "The 
Old Front Gate." Almost all of these poems 
represent the true humorist's blending of hu- 
mor and pathos, and all of them exemplify 
the delicate and sympathetic irony of which 
Dunbar was such a master. As representative 
of the dialect verse at its best, attention might 
be called to a little poem that was included 
in the illustrated volume, "Candle-Lightin' 
Time," but that, strangely enough, was omitted 
from both of the larger editions of the poems, 
very probably because the title, "Lullaby," 
was used more than once by the poet: 

Kiver up yo' haid, my little lady, 

Hyeah de win' a-blowin' out o' do's, 
Don' you kick, ner projick wid de comfo't, 

Less'n fros '11 bite yo' little toes. 



42 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Shut yo' eyes, an' snuggle up to mammy; 

Gi' me bofe yo' ban's, I hoi' 'em tight; 
Don' you be afeard, an' 'mence to trimble 

Ues cz soon cz I blows out de light. 

Angels is a-mindin' you, my baby, 

Kcepin' off de Bad Man in de night. 
Whut dc use o' bein' skeered o' nuffin'? 

You don' fink de da'kness gwine to bite? 
\\\\\xi de crackin' soun' you liyeah erroun' you? — 

Lawsy, claile, you tickles me to def! — 
Dat's de man what brings de fros', a-paintin' 

Picters on de winder w^d his bref. 

Mammy ain' afeard, you hyeah huh laughin'? 

Go 'way, Mistah Fros', you can't come in; 
Baby ain' erceivin' folks dis evenin', 

Reckon dat you '11 have to call ag'in. 
Curl 3'o' httle toes up so, my 'possum — 

Umph, but you's a cunnin' one fu' true! — 
Go to sleep, de angels is a-watchin', 

An' yo' mammy's mindin' of you, too. 

The short stories of Dunbar would have 
been sufficient to make his reputation, even 
if he had not written his poems. One of the 
best technically is "Jimsella," from the ''Folks 
from Dixie" volume. This story exhibits the 
pathos of the life of unskilled Negroes in the 
North, and the leading of a Httle child. In 
the surcness with which it moves to its con- 



Paul Laurence Dunbar J^S 

elusion it is a beautiful work of art. "A Family 
Feud" shows the influence of an old servant 
in a wealthy Kentucky family. In similar 
vein is ''Aunt Tempe's Triumph." "The 
Walls of Jericho " is an exposure of the methods 
of a sensational preacher. Generally these 
stories attempt no keen satire, but only a 
faithful portrayal of conditions as they are, 
or, in most cases, as they were in ante-bellum 
days. Dunbar's novels are generally weaker 
than his short stories, though "The Sport of 
the Gods," because of its study of a definite 
phase of life, rises above the others. Nor are 
his occasional articles especially strong. He 
was eminently a lyric poet. By his graceful 
and beautiful verse it is that he has won a 
distinct place in the history of American liter- 
ature. 

By his genius Paul Laurence Dunbar at- 
tracted the attention of the great, the wise, 
and the good. His bookcase contained many 
autograph copies of the works of distinguished 
contemporaries. The similarity of his position 
in American literature to that of Burns in 
English has frequently been pointed out. In 
our own time he most readily invites comparison 



^ The Negro in Literature and Art 

^ith James Whitcomb Riley. The writings 
of both men are distinguished by infinite tender- 
ness and pathos. But above all worldly fame, 
above even the expression of a struggling 
j-)cople's heart, was the poet's own striving for 
the unattainable. There was something heroic \i 
aliout him withal, something that links him 
witli Keats, or, in this latter day, with Rupert \ 
Brooke and Alan Seeger. He yearned for love, 
and the world rushed on; then he smiled at 
death and was universally loved. 



IV 

CHARLES W. CHESNUTT 

CHARLES WADDELL CHESNUTT, the 
best known novelist and short story- 
writer of the race, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, 
June 20, 1858. At the age of sixteen he began 
to teach in the public schools of North Caro- 
lina, from which state his parents had gone to 
Cleveland; and at the age of twenty-three he 
became principal of the State Normal School 
at Fayetteville. In 1883 he left the South, 
engaging for a short while in newspaper work 
in New York City, but going soon to Cleve- 
land, where he worked as a stenographer. 
He was admitted to the bar in 1887. 

While in North Carolina Mr. Chesnutt 
studied to good purpose the dialect, manners, 
and superstitions of the Negro people of the 
state. In 1887 he began in the Atlantic Monthly 
the series of stories which was afterwards 

brought together in the volume entitled, "The 

45 



JiG The Negro in Literature and Art 

Conjure Woman." This book was published 
by the Houghton Mifflin Co., the firm which 
pubhshed also Mr. Chesnutt's other collection 
of stories and the first two of his three novels. 
"The Wife of his Youth, and Other Stories 
of the Color-Line" appeared in 1899. In the 
same year appeared a compact biography of 
Frederick Douglass, a contribution to the 
Beacon Biographies of Eminent Americans. 
Three novels have since appeared, as follows: 
"The House Behind the Cedars" (1900); 
"The Marrow of Tradition" (1901); and "The 
Colonel's Dream"(1905). 

Mr. Chesnutt's short stories are not all of 
the same degree of excellence, but the best 
ones show that he is fully master of the short 
story as a literary form. One of the best tech- 
nically is "The Bouquet." This is a story of 
the devotion of a little Negro girl to her white 
teacher, and shows clearly how the force of 
Southern prejudice might forbid the expression 
of simple love not only in a representative 
home, but even when the object of the devo- 
tion is borne to the cemetery. "The Sheriff's 
Children" is a tragic tale of the relations of a 
white father with his illegitimate colored son. 




CHARLES W. CHESNUTT 



Charles W. Chesnutt J^t 

Most famous of all these stories, however, is 
"The Wife of his Youth," a simple work of 
art of great intensity. It is a tale of a very- 
fair colored man who, just before the Civil 
War, by the aid of his Negro wife, makes his 
way from slavery in Missouri to freedom in a 
Northern city, Groveland [Cleveland?]. After 
the years have brought to him business suc- 
cess and culture, and he has become the 
acknowledged leader of his social circle and the 
prospective husband of a very attractive young 
widow, his wife suddenly appears on the scene. 
The story ends with Mr. Ryder's acknowl- 
edging before a company of guests the wife of 
his youth. Such stories as these, each setting 
forth a certain problem and working it out to 
its logical conclusion, reflect great credit upon 
the literary skill of the wiiter. 

Of the novels, ''The House Behind the 
Cedars" is commonly given first place. In 
the story of the heroine, Rena Walden, are 
treated some of the most subtle and search- 
ing questions raised by the color-line. Rena 
is sought in love by three men, George Tryon, 
a white man, whose love fails when put to 
the test; Jeff Wain, a coarse and brutal mu- 



4S The Negro in Literature and Art 

latto, and Frank Fowler, a devoted young 
Negro, who makes every sacrifice demanded 
by love. The novel, especially in its last 
pages, moves with an intensity that is an im- 
mistakable sign of power. It is Mr. Ches- 
nutt's most sustained treatment of the subject 
for which he has become best known, that is, 
the deUcate and tragic situation of those who 
live on the border-line of the races; and it is 
the best work of fiction yet written by a mem- 
ber of the race in America. In ''The Marrow 
of Tradition" the main theme is the relations 
of two women, one white and one colored, 
whose father, the same white man, had in 
time been married to the mother of each. 
The novel touches upon almost every phase 
of the Negro Problem. It is a powerful plea, 
but perhaps too much a novel of purpose to 
satisfy the highest standards of art. The 
Wellington of the story is very evidently Wil- 
mington, N. C, and the book was written 
immediately after the race troubles in that city 
in 1898. ''The Colonel's Dream" is a sad 
Btory of the failure of high ideals. Colonel 
Henry French is a man who, born in the South, 
achieves success in New York and returns to 



Charles W. Chesnutt 49 

his old home for a Httle vacation, only to find 
himself face to face with all the problems that 
one meets in a backward Southern town. "He 
dreamed of a regenerated South, filled with 
thriving industries, and thronged with a pros- 
perous and happy people, where every man, 
having enough for his needs, was willing that 
every other man should have the same; where 
law and order should prevail unquestioned, and 
where every man could enter, through the 
golden door of hope, the field of opportunity, 
where lay the prizes of life, which all might 
have an equal chance to win or lose." Becom- 
ing interested in the injustice visited upon the 
Negroes in the courts, and in the employment 
of white children in the cotton-mills. Colonel 
French encounters opposition to his benevo- 
lent plans, opposition which finally sends him 
back to New York defeated. Mr. Chesnutt 
writes in simple, clear English, and his methods 
might well be studied by younger writers who 
desire to treat, in the guise of fiction, the many 
searching questions that one meets to-day in 
the life of the South. 



W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS 

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT 
DUBOIS was born February 23, 1868, 
at Great Barrington, Mass. He received the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts at Fisk University 
in 1888, the same degree at Harvard in 1890, 
that of Master of Arts at Harvard in 1891, 
and, after a season of study at the University 
of Berlin, received also the degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy at Harvard in 1895, his thesis 
being his exhaustive study, "Suppression of 
the Slave-Trade." Dr. DuBois taught for a 
brief period at Wilberforce University, and was 
also for a time an assistant and fellow in Soci- 
ology at the University of Pennsylvania, pro- 
ducing in 1899 his study, "The Philadelphia 
Negro." In 1896 he accepted the professor- 
ship of History and Economics at Atlanta 
University, the position which he left in 1910 
to become Director of Publicity and Research 

for the National Association for the Advance- 
so 




W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS 



W. E. Burghardt DuBois 51 

ment of Colored People. In connection with 
this work he has edited the Crisis since the 
beginning of that publication. He has made 
various investigations, frequently for the na- 
tional government, and has contributed many 
sociological studies to leading magazines. He 
has been the moving spirit of the Atlanta 
Conference, and by the Studies of Negro 
Problems, which he has edited at Atlanta Uni- 
versity, he has become recognized as one of 
the great sociologists of the day, and as the 
man who more than anyone else has given 
scientific accuracy to studies relating to the 
Negro. 

Aside from his more technical studies (these 
including the masterly little book, ''The Ne- 
gro," in Holt's Home University Library 
Series), Dr. DuBois has written three books 
which call for consideration in a review of 
Negro literature. Of these one is a biography, 
one a novel, and the other a collection of essays. 
In 1909 was published ''John Brown," a con- 
tribution to the series of American Crisis 
Biographies. The subject was one well adapted 
to treatment at the hands of Dr. DuBois, and 
in the last chapter, "The Legacy of John 



62 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Brown," he has shown that his hero has a 
message for twentieth century America, this: 
"The cost of hberty is less than the price of 
repression." ''The Quest of the Silver Fleece," 
the novel, appeared in 1911. This story has 
three main themes: the economic position 
of the Negro agricultural laborer, the subsi- 
dizing of a certain kind of Negro schools, and 
Negro life and society in the city of Washing- 
ton. The book employs a big theme in its 
portrayal of the power of King Cotton in 
both high and lowly life in the Southland; 
but its tone is frequently one of satire, and on 
the whole the work will not add much to the 
already established reputation of the author. 
The third book really appeared before either 
of the two works just mentioned, and embodies 
the best work of the author in his most highly 
idealistic period. In 1903 fourteen essays, 
most of which had already appeared in such 
magazines as the Atlantic and the World's 
Work, were brought together in a volume en- 
/titled, ''The Souls of Black Folk." The re- 
markable style of this book has made it the 
most important work in classic English yet 
written by a Negro. It is marked by all the 



W. E. Burghardt DuBois 53 

arts of rhetoric, especially by liquid and al- 
literative effects, strong antithesis, frequent 
allusion, and poetic suggestiveness. The color- 
line is "The Veil," the familiar melodies, the 
"Sorrow Songs." The qualities that have just 
been remarked will be observed in the following 
paragraphs: 

I have seen a land right merry with the sun, where 
children sing, and rolling hills lie like passioned women 
wanton with harvest. And there in the King's Highway- 
sat and sits a figure veiled and bowed, by which the travel- 
er's footsteps hasten as they go. On the tainted air 
broods fear. Three centuries' thought has been the raising 
and unveiling of that bowed human heart, and now behold 
a century new for the duty and the deed. The problem 
of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line. 



My journey was done, and behind me lay hiU and dale, 
and Life and Death. How shall man measure Progress 
there where the dark-faced Josie hes? How many heart- 
fuls of sorrow shall balance a bushel of wheat? How 
hard a thing is hfe to the lowly, and yet how human and 
real! And all this life and love and strife and failm-e — • 
is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint- 
dawning day? 

Thus sadly musing, I rode to Nashville in the Jim Crow 
car. 



I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the 
color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, 



54 The Negro in Literature and Art 

where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded 
halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between 
the strong-liinbcd earth and the tracery of the stars, I 
summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, 
and they all come graciously with no scorn nor conde- 
Bcension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. 
Is this the life you grudge us, knightly America? Is 
this the life you long to change into the dull red hideous- 
ness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this 
high risgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight 
the Promised Land? 

Where merit is 30 even and the standard 
of performance so high, one hesitates to choose 
that which is best. ''The Dawn of Freedom" 
is a study of the Freedmen's Bureau; ''Mr. 
Booker T. Washington and Others" is a frank 
criticism of the late orator and leader; ''The 
Meaning of Progress" is a story of life in 
Tennessee, told with infinite pathos by one 
who has been the country schoolmaster; "The 
Training of Black Men" is a plea for liber- 
ally educated leadership; while "The Quest 
of the Golden Fleece," like one or two related 
essays, is a faithful portrayal of life in the 
black belt. The book, as a whole, is a powerful 
plea for justice and the liberty of citizenship. 

W. E. Burghardt DuBois is the best example 
that has so far appeared of the combination 



W. E. Burghardt DuBois 55 

of high scholarship and the peculiarly romantic 
temperament of the Negro race. Beneath all 
the play of logic and statistic beats the passion 
of a mighty human heart. For a long time 
he was criticised as aloof, reserved, unsym- 
pathetic; but more and more, as the years 
have passed, has his mission become clearer, 
his love for his people stronger. Forced by 
the pressure of circumstance, gradually has he 
been led from the congenial retreat of the 
scholar into the arena of social struggle; but 
for two decades he has remained an out- 
standing interpreter of the spiritual life of 
his people. He is to-day the foremost leader 
of the race in America. 



VI 

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE 

THE foremost of the poets of the race at 
present is WilHam Stanley Braithwaite, 
of Boston. Mr. Braithwaite is not only the 
possessor of unusual talent, but for years he 
has worked most conscientiously at his art 
and taken the time and the pains to master 
the fundamentals that others all too often deem 
unimportant. In 1904 he published a small 
book of poems entitled ''Lyrics of Life and 
Love." This was followed four years later 
by "The House of Falling Leaves." Within 
recent years he has given less and less time 
to his owm verse, becoming more and more 
distinguished as a critic in the special field of 
American poetry. For several years he has 
been a regular and valued contributor of liter- 
ary criticism to the Boston Evening Transcript; 
he has had verse or critical essays in the 
Forum, the Century, Scribner^s, the Atlantic, 

56 




WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE 



i 



William Stanley Braithwaite 57 

etc.; and in 1916 became editor of the new 
Poetry Review of Cambridge. He has collected 
and edited (publishing chiefly through Bren- 
tano's) "The Book of EUzabethan Verse," 
''The Book of Georgian Verse," and ''The Book 
of Restoration Verse"; and he has also pub- 
lished the "Anthology of Magazine Verse" 
for each year since 1913. He is the general 
editor of "The Contemporary American Poets 
Series," which is projected by the Poetry Re- 
view Company, and which will be issued in 
twelve little books, each giving a sympathetic 
study of a poet of the day; he himself is 
writing the volume on Edwin Arlington Robin- 
son; and before long it is expected that a novel 
will appear from his pen. Very recently (1917) 
Mr. Braithwaite has brought together in a 
volume, "The Poetic Year," the series of 
articles which he contributed to the Transcript 
in 1916-17. The aim was in the form of con- 
versations between a small group of friends to 
discuss the poetry of 1916. Says he: "There 
were four of us in the little group, and our 
common love for the art of poetry suggested 
a weekly meeting in the grove to discuss the 
books we had all agreed upon reading. . . . 



68 The Negro in Literature and Art 

I made up my mind to record these discussions, 
and the setting as well, with all those other 
touches of human character and mood which 
never fail to enliven and give color to the 
serious business of art and life. ... I gave 
fanciful names to my companions, Greek names 
which I am persuaded symbolized the spirit 
of each. There was nothing Psyche touched 
but made its soul apparent. Her wood-lore 
was beautiful and thorough; the very spirit 
of flowers, birds and trees was evoked when 
she went among them. Our other companion 
of her sex was Cassandra, and we gave her this 
name not because her forebodings were gloomy, 
but merely for her prophesying disposition, 
which was always building air-castles. The 
other member besides myself of our little group 
was Jason, of the heroic dreams and adventure- 
some spirit. He was restless in the bonds of 
a tranquillity that chafed the hidden spirit of 
his being." From the introduction we get 
something of the critic's own aims and ideals- 
"The conversational scheme of the book may, 
or may not, interest some readers. Poetry is 
a human thing, and it is time for the world — 
and especially our part of the world — to re- 



William Stanley Braithwaite 59 

gard it as belonging to the people. It sprang 
from the folk, and passed, when culture began 
to flourish, into the possession of a class. Now 
culture is passing from a class to the folk, 
and with it poetry is returning to its original 
possessors. It is in the spirit of these words 
that we discuss the poetry of the year." Em- 
phasis is here given to this work because it 
is the sturdiest achievement of Mr. Braith- 
waite in the field in which he has recently 
become most distinguished, and even the brief 
quotations cited are sufficient to give some idea 
of his graceful, suggestive prose. 

In a review of this writer's poetry we have 
to consider especially the two collections, 
''Lyrics of Life and Love," and ''The House of 
Falling Leaves," and the poems that have more 
recently appeared in the Atlantic, Scrihner^s, 
and other magazines. It is to be hoped that 
before very long he will publish a new edition 
of his poems. The earlier volumes are out of 
print, and a new book could contain the best 
of them, as well as what has appeared more 
recently. ''Lyrics of Life and Love" embodied 
the best of the poet's early work. The little 
book contains eighty pages, and no one of the 



60 The Negro in Literature and Art 

l\Tics takes up more than two pages, twenty 
ill fact being exactly eight lines in length. 
This ajipoarance of fragility, however, is a 
little deceptive. Wliile Keats and Shelley are 
constantly evident as the models in technique, 
the yearning of more than one lyric reflects 
the deeper romantic temper. The bravado 
and the tenderness of the old poets are evident 
again in the two Christmas pieces, ''Holly 
Berry and Mistletoe," and "Yule-Song: A 
Memory": 

The trees are bare, wild flies the snow, 
Heartlis are glowing, hearts are merry — 

High in the air is the Mistletoe, 
Over the door is the Holly Berry. 

Never have care how the winds may blow, 
Never confess the revel grows weary — 

Yule is the time of the Mistletoe, 
Yule is the time of the Holly Berry. 



December comes, snows come, 
Comes the wintry weather; 
Faces from away come — 
Hearts must be together. 
Down the stair-steps of the hours 
Yule leaps the hills and towers — 
Fill the bowl and hang the holly, 
Let the times be jolly. 



William Stanley Braithwaite 61 

''The Watchers" is in the spirit of Kingsley's 
"The Three Fishers": 

Two women on the lone wet strand — 
{The wind's out with a will to roam) 

The waves wage war on rocks and sand, 
(And a ship is long due home.) 

The sea sprays in the women's eyes — 
{Hearts can writhe like the sea's wild foam) 

Lower descend the tempestuous skies, 
{For the wind's out with a will to roam.) 

"O daughter, thine eyes be better than mine," 
{The waves ascend high on yonder dome) 

"North or South is there never a sign?" 
{And a ship is long due home.) 

They watched there all the long night through— 
{The wind's out with a will to roam) 

Wind and rain and sorrow for two — 
{And heaven on the long reach home.) 

The second volume marked a decided ad- 
vance in technique. When we remember also 
the Pre-Raphaelite spirit, with its love of 
rhythm and imagery, we are not surprised to 
find here an appreciation "To Dante Gabriel 
Rossetti." Especially has the poet made prog- 
ress in the handling of the sonnet, as may 
be seen in the following: 



62 The Negro in Literature and Art 

My thoughts go marching like an armed host 

Out of the city of silence, guns and cars; 
Troop after troop across my dreams they post 

To the invasion of the wind and stars. 
bra\'c array of youth's untamed desire! 

With thy bold, dauntless captain Hope to lead 
His raw recruits to Fate's opposing fire. 

And up the walls of Circumstance to bleed. 
How fares the expedition in the end? 

When this my heart shall have old age for king 
And to the wars no further troop can send. 

What final message will the arm'stice bring? ^ 
The host gone forth in youth the world to meet. 
In age returns — in victory or defeat? v '^ 

Then there is the epilogue with its heart-cry: 

Lord of the mystic star-blown gleams 
Whose sweet compassion lifts my dreams; 
Lord of life in the lips of the rose 
That kiss desire; whence Beauty grows; 
Lord of the power inviolate 
That keeps immune thy seas from fate, 



Lord, Very God of these works of thine, 
Hear me, I beseech thee, most divine! 

Within very recent years Mr. Braithwaite 
has attracted unusual attention among the 
discerning by a new note of mysticism that 
has crept into his verse. This was first ob- 



'i 



William Stanley Braithwaite 63 

served in "Sandy Star," that appeared in the 
Atlantic (July, 1909): 

No more from out the sunset, 

No more across the foam, 
No more across the windy hills 

Will Sandy Star come home. 

He went away to search it, 
With a curse upon his tongue. 

And in his hands the staff of life' 
Made music as it swung. 

I wonder if he found it, 
And knows the mystery now: 

Our Sandy Star who went away 
With the secret on his brov/. 

The same note is in "The Mystery" (or "The 
Way," as the poet prefers to call it) that ap- 
peared in Scribner^s (October, 1915) : 

He could not tell the way he came 

Because Ms chart was lost: 
Yet all his way was paved with flame 

From the bourne he crossed. 

He did not know the way to go, 

Because he had no map: 
He followed where the winds blow, — 

And the April sap. 



64 The Negro in Literature and Art 

He never knew upon his brow 

The secret that he bore — 
Aud hiughs away the mystery now 

The dark's at his door. 

]\Ir. Braithwaite has done well. He is to-day 
the foremost man of the race in pure literature. 
But above any partial or limited considera- 
tion, after years of hard work he now has 
recognition not only as a poet of standing, 
but as the chief sponsor for current American 
poetry. No comment on his work could be 
better than that of the Transcript, November 
30, 1915: "He has helped poetry to readers 
as well as to poets. One is guilty of no ex- 
travagance in saying that the poets we have 
— and they may take their place with their 
peers in any country — and the gathering defer- 
ence we pay them, are created largely out of 
the stubborn, self-effacing enthusiasm of this 
one man. In a sense their distinction is his 
own. In a sense he has himself written their 
poetry. Very much by his toil they may write 
and be read. Not one of them will ever write 
a fnier poem than Braithwaite himself has 
lived already." 



VII 

OTHER WRITERS 

IN addition to those who have been men- 
tioned, there have been scores of writers 
who would have to be considered if wp were 
deahng with the hterature of the Negro in 
the widest sense of the term. Not too clearly, 
however, can the limitations of our subject 
be insisted upon. We are here concerned 
with distinctly literary or artistic achievement, 
and not with work that belongs in the realm 
of religion, sociology, or politics. Only briefer 
mention accordingly can be given to these 
latter fields. 

Naturally, from the first there have been 
works dealing with the place of the Negro in 
American life. Outstanding after the numerous 
sociological studies and other contributions to 
periodical literature of Dr. DuBois are the 
books of the late Booker T. Washington. 
Representative of these are ''The Future of 

65 



66 The Negro in Literature and Art 

the American Negro," ''My Larger Education," 
and ''The Man Farthest Down." As early as 
1829, however, David Walker, of Boston, pub- 
hshed his passionate "Appeal," a protest 
against slavery that awakened Southern legis- 
latures to action; and in the years just before 
the Civil War, Henry Highland Garnet wrote 
sermons and addresses on the status of the race 
in America, while William Wells Brown wrote 
"Three Years in Europe," and various other 
works, some of which will receive later mention. 
After the war, Alexander Crummell became an 
outstanding figure by reason of his sermons 
and addresses, many of which were preserved. 
He was followed by an interesting group of 
scholarly men, represented especially by Will- 
iam S. Scarborough, Kelly Miller, and Archi- 
bald H. Grimk^. Mr. Scarborough is now 
president of Wilberforce University. He has 
contributed numerous articles to representa- 
tive magazines. His work in more technical 
fields is represented by his "First Lessons 
in Greek," a treatise on the "Bu-ds" of Aris- 
tophanes, and his paper in the Arena (January, 
1S97) on "Negro Folk-Lore and Dialect." 
Mr. MUler is Dean of the College of Arts and 



I 



Other Writers 67 

Sciences at Howard University. He has col- 
lected his numerous and cogent papers in two 
volumes, "Race Adjustment," and ''Out of 
the House of Bondage." The first is the more 
varied and interesting of the two books, but 
the latter contains the poetic rhapsody, ''I 
See and Am Satisfied," first pubUshed in the 
Independent (August 7, 1913). Mr. A. H. 
Grimk^, as well as Mr. Miller, has contributed 
to the Atlantic; and he has written the lives 
of Garrison and Sumner in the American Re- 
formers Series. ''Negro Culture in West 
Africa," by George W. Ellis, is original and 
scholarly; "The Aftermath of Slavery," by 
William A. Sinclair, is a volume of more 
^than ordinaiy interest; and "The African 
Abroad," by William H. Ferris, while con- 
fused in construction and form, contains much 
thoughtful material. Within recent years there 
have been published a great many works, 
frequently illustrated, on the progress and 
achievements of the race. Very few of these 
books are scholarly. Three collaborations, how- 
ever, are of decided value. One is a little 
volume entitled, "The Negro Problem," con- 
sisting of seven papers by representative 



6S The Negro in Literature and Art 

Negroes, and published in 1903 by James 
Pott & Co., of New York. Another is ''From 
Servitude to Service," published in 1905 by 
the iVmerican Unitarian Association of Boston, 
and made up of the Old South Lectures on 
the history and work of Southern institutions 
for the education of the Negro; while the 
third collaboration is, ''The Negro in the 
South," published in 1907 by George W. 
Jacobs & Co., of Philadelphia, and made up of 
four papers, two by Dr. Washington, and two 
by Dr. DuBois, which were the William Levi 
Bull Lectures in the Philadelphia Divinity 
School for the year 1907. 

Halfway between w^orks on the Negro 
Problem and those in history, are those in the 
field of biography and autobiography. For 
decades before the Civil War the experiences 
of fugitive slaves were used as a part of the 
anti-slavery argument. In 1845 appeared the 
''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," 
this being greatly enlarged and extended in 
1881 as "The Life and Times of Frederick 
Douglass." In similar vein was the "Auto- 
biography of a Fugitive Negro," by Samuel 
Ringgold Ward. Then Josiah Henson (the 



Other Writers 69 

original of Uncle Tom) and Sojourner Truth 
issued their narratives. Collections of more 
than ordinary interest were William Wells 
Brown's ''The Black Man" (1863), James M. 
Trotter's ''Music and Some Highly Musical 
People" (1878), and William J. Simmons's 
"Men of Mark" (1887). John Mercer Lang- 
ston's "From the Virginia Plantation to the 
National Capitol" is interesting and service- 
able; special interest attaches to Matthew 
Henson's "A Negro Explorer at the North 
Pole"; while Maud Cuney Hare's "Norris 
Wright Cuney" was a distinct contribution to 
the history of Southern politics. The most 
widely known work in this field, however, is 
"Up From Slavery," by Booker T. Wash- 
ington. The unaffected and simple style of 
this book has made it a model of personal 
writing, and it is by reason of merit that the 
work has gained unusual currency. 

The study, of course, becomes more special 
in the field of history. Interest from the 
first was shown in church history. This was 
represented immediately after the war by 
Bishop Daniel A. Payne's studies in the his- 
tory of the A. M. E. Church, and twenty-five 



70 The Negro in Literature and Art 

years later, for the Baptist denomination, by 
E. M. Brawley's ''The Negro Baptist Pulpit." 
One of the earliest writers of merit was William 
C. Nell, who, in 1851, published his pamphlet, 
''Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 
1776 and 1812." "The Rising Son," by William 
Wells Brown, was an account of "the ante- 
cedents and advancement of the colored race"; 
the work gave considerable attention to Africa, 
Hayti, and the colonies, and was quite scholarly 
in method. Then, in 1872, full of personal ex- 
perience, appeared William Still's "The Under- 
ground Railroad." The epoch-making work in 
history, however, was the two-volume "His- 
tory of the Negro Race in America," by George 
W. Williams, which was issued in 1883. This 
work was the exploration of a new field and the 
result of seven years of study. The historian 
more than once wrote subjectively, but his 
work was, on the whole, written with un- 
usually good taste. After thirty years some 
of his pages have, of course, been superseded; 
but his work is even yet the great storehouse 
for students of Negro history. Technical study 
within recent years is best represented by the 
Harvard doctorate theses of Dr. DuBois and 



Other Writers 71 

Dr. Carter G. Woodson. That of Dr. DuBois 
has already been mentioned. That of Dr. 
Woodson was entitled ''The Disruption of 
Virginia." Dr. Woodson is the editor of the 
Journal of Negro History, a quarterly^magazine 
that began to appear in 1916, and that has 
already published several articles of the first 
order of merit. He has also written ''The 
Education of the Negro Prior to 1861," a work 
in the most scientific spirit of modern historical 
study, to which a companion volume for the 
later period is expected. Largely original also 
in the nature of their contribution have been 
"The Haitian Revolution," by T. G. Steward, 
and "The Facts of Reconstruction," by John 
R. Lynch; and, while less intensive, interest- 
ing throughout is J. W. Cromwell's "The 
Negro in American History." 

Many of the younger writers are cultivating 
the short story. Especially have two or three, 
as yet unknown to the wider public, done 
excellent work in connection with syndicates 
of great newspapers. "The Goodness of St. 
Rocque, and Other Stories," by AHce Moore 
Dunbar (now Mrs. Nelson), is representative 
of the stronger work in this field. Numerous 



K2 The Negro in Literature and Art 

attempts at the composition of novels have 
also been made. Even before the Civil War 
was over appeared William Wells Brown's 
"Clotille: A Tale of the Southern States." 
It is in this special department, however, that 
a sense of literary form has frequently been 
most lacking. The distinctively literary essay 
has not unnaturally suffered from the general 
pressure of the Problem. A paper in the 
Atlantic Monthly (February, 1906), however, 
"The Joys of Being a Negro," by Edward E. 
Wilson, a Chicago lawyer, was of outstanding 
brilliancy. A. O. Stafford, of Washington, is 
a special student of the folklore of Africa. 
He has contributed several scholarly papers to 
the Journal of Negro History, and he has also 
published through the American Book Com- 
pany an interesting supplementary reader, 
"Animal Fables From the Dark Continent." 
Alain Locke is interested in both philosophical 
and literary studies, represented by "The 
American Temperament," a paper contributed 
to the North American Review (August, 1911), 
and a paper on Emile Verharen in the Poetry 
Review (January, 1917). 
Little has been accomplished in sustained 



Other Writers 73 

poetic flight. Of shorter lyric verse, however, 
many booklets have appeared. As this is the 
field that offers peculiar opportunity for sub- 
jective expression, more has been attempted 
in it than in any other department of artistic 
endeavor. It demands, therefore, special at- 
tention, and the study will take us back before 
the Civil War. 

The first person to attract much attention 
after Phillis Wheatley was George Moses Hor- 
ton, of North Carolina, who was born in 1797 
and died about 1880 (or 1883). He was am- 
bitious to learn, was the possessor of unusual 
literary talent, and in one way or another re- 
ceived instruction from various persons. He 
very soon began to write verse, all of which 
was infused with his desire for freedom, and 
much of which was suggested by the common 
evangelical hynms, as were the following lines: 

Alas! and am I bom for this. 

To wear this slavish chain? 
Deprived of all created bliss, 

Through hardship, toil, and pain? 

How long have I in bondage lain, 
And languished to be free! 



71^ The Negro in Literature and Art 

Alas! and must I still complain, 
Deprived of liberty? 



Come, Liberty! thou cheerful sound, 

Roll through my ravished ears; 
Come, let my grief in joys be drowned, 

And drive away my fears. 

Some of Horton's friends became interested 
in him and desired to help him publish a volume 
of liis poems, so that from the sale of these he 
might purchase his freedom and go to the 
new colony of Liberia. The young man be- 
came fired with ambition and inspiration. 
Thrilled by the new hope, he wrote: 

'Twas like the salutation of the dove. 
Borne on the zephyr through some lonesome grove, 
When spring returns, and winter's chill is past, 
And vegetation smiles above the blast. 

Horton's master, however, demanded for him 
an exorbitant price, and when ''The Hope of 
Liberty" appeared in 1829 it had nothing of 
the sale that was hoped for. Disappointed in 
his great desire, the poet seems to have lost 
amlDition. He became a janitor around the 
state university at Chapel Hill, executed small 
commissions for verse from the students, who 



Other Writers 75 

treated him kindly, and in later years went 
to Philadelphia; but his old dreams had 
faded. Several reprintings of his poems were 
made, however, and one of these was bound 
with the 1838 edition of PhiUis Wheatley's 
poems. 

In 1854 appeared the first edition of "Poems 
on Miscellaneous Subjects," by Frances Ellen 
Watkins, commonly known as Mrs. Frances 
E. W. Harper. Mrs. Harper was a woman of 
exceptionally strong personality and could read 
her poems to advantage. Her verse was very 
popular, not less than ten thousand copies of 
her booklets being sold. It was decidedly 
lacking in technique, however, and much 
in the style of Mrs. Hemans. Mrs. Harper 
was best when most simple, as when in writing 
of children she said: 

I almost think the angels 

Wlio tend life's garden fair, 
Drop down the sweet white blossoms 

That bloom around us here. 

t 

The secret of her popularity was to be seen in 
such lines as the following from "Bury Me 
in a Free Land": 



76 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Make me a grave where'er you will, 
In a lowly plain or a lofty liill; 
Make it among earth's hmnblest graves, 
But not in a land where men are slaves. 

Of the Emancipation Proclamation she wrote: 

It shall flash through coming ages, 

It shall light the distant years; 
And eyes now dim with sorrow 

Shall be brighter thi'ough thek tears. 

While Mrs. Harper was still prominently 
before the public appeared Albery A. Whitman, 
a Methodist minister, whose ''Not a Man and 
Yet a Man" appeared in 1877. The work of 
this wTiter is the most baffling with which this 
book has to deal. It is diffuse, exhibits many 
lapses in taste, is uneven metrically, as if 
done in haste, and shows imitation on every 
hand. It imitates Whittier, Longfellow, Tenny- 
son, Scott, Byron and Moore. "The Old 
Sac Village" and "Nanawawa's Suitors" are 
veiy evidently "Hiawatha" over again; and 
"Custer's Last Ride" is simply another ver- 
sion of "The Charge of the Light Brigade." 
"The Rape of Florida" exhibits the same 
general characteristics as the earlier poems. 



''I 



Other Writers 77 

And yet, whenever one has about decided that 
Whitman is not worthy of consideration, he 
insists on a revision of judgment. The fact 
is that he shows a decided faculty for brisk 
narration. This may be seen in "The House 
of the Aylors." He has, moreover, a romantic 
lavishness of description that, in spite of all 
technical faults, still has some degree of merit. 
The following quotations, taken respectively 
from "The Mowers" and "The Flight of 
Leeona," will exemplify both his extravagance 
and his possibilities in description: 

The tall forests swim in a crimson sea, 
Out of whose bright depths rising silently, 
Great golden spires shoot into the skies, 
Among the isles of cloudland high, that rise, 
Float, scatter, burst, drift off, and slowly fade, 
Deep in the twilight, shade succeeding shade. 



And now she turns upon a mossy seat. 
Where sings a fern-boimd stream beneath her feet. 
And breathes the orange in the swooning air; 
Where in her queenly pride the rose blooms fair. 
And sweet geranium waves her scented hair; 
There, gazing in the bright face of the stream, 
Her thoughts swim onward in a gentle dream. 

In "A Dream of Glory" occur the lines: 



78 The Negro in Literature and Art 

The fairest blooms are bom of humble weeds, 
That faint and perish in the pathless wood; 

And out of bitter life grow noble deeds 
To pass imnoticed in the multitude. 

Whitman's shortcomings become readily ap- 
parent when he attempts sustained work. ''The 
Rape of Florida" is the longest poem yet writ- 
ten by a Negi'o in America, and also the only 
attempt by a member of the race to use the 
elaborate Spenserian stanza throughout a long 
piece of work. The story is concerned with 
the capture of the Seminoles in Florida through 
perfidy and the taking of them away to their 
new home in the West. It centers around 
three characters, Palmecho, an old chief, Ewald, 
his daughter, and Atlassa, a young Seminole 
who is Ewald's lover. The poem is decidedly 
diffuse; there is too much subjective descrip- 
tion, too little strong characterization. Pal- 
mecho, instead of being a stout warrior, is a 
"chief of peace and kindly deeds." Stanzas of 
merit, however, occasionally strike the eye. The 
boat-song forces recognition as genuine poetry: 

"Come now, my love, the moon is on the lake; 
Upon the waters is my light canoe; 
Come with me, love, and gladsome oars shall make 
A music on the parting wave for you, — 



' Other Writers 79 

Come o'er the waters deep and dark and blue; 
Come where the lilies in the marge have sprung, 

Come with me, love, for Oh, ray love is true!" 
This is the song that on the lake was sung, 
The boatman sang it over when his heart was young. 

In 1890 Whitman brought out an edition of 
''Not a Man and Yet a Man" and "The 
Rape of Florida," adding to these a collection 
of miscellaneous poems, ''Drifted Leaves," and 
in 1901 he published "An Idyl of the South," 
an epic poem in two parts. It is to be regretted 
that he did not have the training that comes 
from the best university education. He had 
the taste and the talent to benefit from such 
culture in the greatest degree. 

All who went before him were, of course, 
superseded in 1896 by Paul Laurence Dunbar; 
and Dunbar started a tradition. Throughout 
the country there sprang up imitators, and 
some of the imitations were more than fair. 
All of this, however, was a passing^phenomenon. 
Those who are writing at the present day almost 
invariably eschew dialect and insist upon classic 
forms and measures. Prominent among these 
is James Weldon Johnson. Mr. Johnson has 
seen a varied career as teacher, writer, consul 
for the United States in foreign countries, 



so The Negro in Literature and Art 

especially Nicaragua, and national organizer 
for the National Association for the Advance- 
ment of Colored People. He has written 
numerous songs, which have been set to music 
by his brother, Rosamond Johnson, or Harry 
T. Burleigh; he made for the Metropolitan 
Opera the English translation of the Spanish 
opera, "Goyescas," by Granados and Periquet; 
and in 1916, while associated with the Age, of 
New York, in a contest opened by the Public 
Ledger, of Philadelphia, to editorial writers all 
over the country, he won a third prize of two 
hundred dollars for a campaign editorial. The 
remarkable book, ''Autobiography of an Ex- 
Colored Man," half fact, half fiction, was pub- 
lished anonymously, but is generally credited 
to ]\Ir. Johnson. Very recently (December, 
1917) has appeared this winter's collection, 
"Fifty Years and Other Poems." In pure lyric 
flow he is best represented by two poems in 
the Century. One was a sonnet entitled, 
"Mother Night" (Febmary, 1910): 

Eternities before the first-born day, 
Or ere tlie first sun fledged his wings of flame, 
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same, 

A brooding mother over chaos lay. 



Other Writers 81 

And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay, 
Shall run their fiery courses and then claim 
The haven of the darkness whence they came; 

Back to Nirvanic peace shall grope their way. 

So when my feeble sun of life burns out, 
And sounded is the horn* for my long sleep, 
I shall, full weary of the feverish light, 

Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt. 
And, heavy-lidded, I shall softly creep 
Into the quiet bosom of the Night. 

When we think of the large number of those 
who have longed for success in artistic ex- 
pression, and especially of the first singers of 
the old melodies, we could close this review 
with nothing better than Mr. Johnson's tribute, 
"O Black and Unknown Bards" {Century, 
November, 1908): 

black and unknown bards of long ago, 

How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? 
How, in your darkness, did you come to know 

The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre? 
Who first from 'midst his bonds lifted his eyes? 

Who first from out the still watch, lone and long. 
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise 

Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song? 

There is a wide, wide wonder in it aU, 
That from degraded rest and servile toil. 

The fiery spirit of the seer should caU 
These simple children of the sun and soil. 



82 The Negro in Literature and Art 

O black singers, gone, forgot, unfamed, 
You— j'ou alone, of all the long, long line 

Of those who've sung untaught, unknown, unnamed, 
Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine. 

You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings: 

No chant of bloody war, nor exulting psean 
Of arms- won triumphs; but your humble strings 

You touched in chords with music empyrean. 
You sang far better than you knew, the songs 

That for your listeners' hungry hearts sufficed 
Still Uve — but more than this to you belongs: 

You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ. 



VIII 

ORATORS. — DOUGLASS AND WASHINGTON 

THE Negro is peculiarly gifted as an orator. 
To magnificent gifts of voice he adds a 
fervor of sentiment and an appreciation of the 
possibilities of a great occasion that are in- 
dispensable in the work of one who excels in 
this field. Greater than any of these things, 
however, is the romantic quality that finds an 
outlet in vast reaches of imagery and a sin- 
gularly figurative power of expression. Only 
this innate gift of rhetorical expression has 
accounted for the tremendous effects sometimes 
realized even by untutored members of the 
race. - Its possibilities under the influences of 
culture and education are illimitable. 

On one occasion Harriet Tubman, famous 
for her work in the Underground Railroad, 
was addressing an audience and describing a 
great battle in the Civil War. ''And then," 

said she, "we saw the lightning, and that 

83 



84 The Negro in Literature and Art 

was the guns; and then we heard the thunder, 
and that was the big guns; and then we heard 
the ram falling, and that was drops of blood 
falling; and when we came to git in the craps, 
it was dead men that we reaped." * All through 
the familiar melodies one finds the pathos and 
the poetry of this imagery. Two unusual in- 
dividuals, untutored but highly gifted in their 
own spheres, in the course of the last century 
proved eminently successful by joining this 
rhetorical faculty to their native earnestness. 
One of these was the anti-slavery speaker. 
Sojourner Truth. Tall, majestic, and yet quite 
uneducated, this interesting woman sometimes 
dazzled her audiences by her sudden turns of 
expression. Anecdotes of her quick and start- 
ling replies are numberless. The other char- 
acter was John Jasper, of Richmond, Va., 
famous three decades ago for his ''Sun do 
move" sermon. Jasper preached not only on 
this theme, but also on ''Dry bones m the 
valley," the glories of the New Jerusalem, and 
many similar subjects that have been used by 
other preachers, sometimes with hardly less 
effect, throughout the South. When one made 
♦Reported by A.B. Hart, in "Slavery and Abolition," 209. 



Orators. — Douglass and Washington 85 

all discount for the tinsel and the dialect, he 
still would have found in the work of John 
Jasper much of the power of the true orator. 

Other men have joined to this love for 
figurative expression the advantages of cul- 
ture; and a conmion characteristic, thoroughly 
typical of the romantic quality constantly 
present, is a fondness for biblical phrase. As 
representative might be remarked Robert B. 
Elliott, famous for his speech in Congress on 
the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Bill; 
John Mercer Langston, also distinguished for 
many political addresses; M. C. B. Mason, for 
years a prominent representative of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church; and Charles T. Walker, 
still the most popular preacher of the Negro 
Baptists. A new and telling form of public 
speaking, destined to have more and more im- 
portance, is that just now best cultivated by 
Dr. DuBois, who, with little play of voice or 
gesture, but with the earnestness of conviction, 
drives home his message with instant effect. 

In any consideration of oratory one must 
constantly bear in mind, of course, the im- 
portance of the spoken word and the personal 
equation. At the same time it must be re- 



S6 The Negro in Literature and Art 

mcmbered that many of the most worthy ad- 
dresses made by Negroes have not been pre- 
served in accessible form. Again and again, 
in some remote community, with true elo- 
quence has an untutored preacher brought 
comfort and inspiration to a struggling people. 
J. C. Price, for years president of Livingstone 
College in North Carolina, was one of the 
truest orators the Negro race ever had, and 
many who heard him will insist that he was 
foremost. His name has become in some 
quarters a synonym for eloquence, and he 
certainly appeared on many noteworthy occa- 
sions with marked effect. His reputation will 
finally suffer, however, for the reason given, 
that his speeches are not now generally acces- 
sible. Not one is in Mrs. Dunbar's "Master- 
pieces of Negro Eloquence." 

One of the most effective occasional speakers 
within recent years has been Reverdy C. Ran- 
som, of the A. M. E. Church. In his great 
moments Mr. Ransom has given the impression 
of the true orator. He has little humor, is 
stately and dignified, but bitter in satire and 
invective. There is, in fact, much in his speak- 
ing to remind one of Frederick Douglass. One 



Orators. — Douglass and Washington 87 

of his greatest efforts was that on the occasion 
of the celebration of the one hundredth anni- 
versary of the birth of Garrison, in Faneuil 
Hall, Boston, December 11, 1905. Said he, in 
part: 

What kind of Negroes do the American people want? 

That they must have the Negro in some relation is no 

longer a question of serious debate. What kind of Negroes 

do the American people want? Do they want a voteless 

Negro in a repubUc founded upon universal suffrage? 

Do they want a Negro who shall not be permitted to 

participate in the government which he must support 

with his treasure and defend with his blood? Do they 

want a Negro who shall consent to be set aside as forming 

a distinct industrial class, permitted to rise no higher 

than the level of serfs or peasants? Do they want a 

Negro who shall accept an inferior social position, not 

as a degradation, but as the just operation of the laws of 

caste based on color? Do they want a Negro who will 

avoid friction between the races by consenting to occupy 

the place to which white men may choose to assign him? 

What kind of a Negro do the American people want? 

. . . Taughtby the Declaration of Independence, sustained 

by the Constitution of the United States, enlightened 

by the education of our schools, this nation can no more 

resist the advancing tread of the hosts of the oncoming 

blacks than it can bmd the stars or halt the resistless 

motion of the tide. 

♦Quoted from "Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence," 314-5. 



SS The Negro in Literature and Art 

Two men, by reason of great natural endow- 
ment, a fitting appreciation of great occasions, 
and the consistency with which they produced 
their effects, have won an undisputed place 
hi any consideration of American orators. 
These men were Frederick Douglass and Booker 
T. Washington. 

Frederick Douglass was bom in 1817 and 
lived for ten years as a slave upon a Maryland 
plantation. Then he was bought by a Balti- 
more shipbuilder. He learned to read, and, 
being attracted by "The Lady of the Lake," 
when he escaped in 1838 and went disguised 
as a sailor to New Bedford, Mass., he adopted 
the name Douglas (spelling it with two s^s, how- 
ever). He lived for several years in New Bed- 
ford, being assisted by Garrison in his efforts 
for an education. In 1841, at an anti-slavery 
convention in Nantucket, he exhibited such 
intelligence, and showed himself the possessor 
of such a remarkable voice, that he was made 
the agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery 
Society. He now lectured extensively in Eng- 
land and the United States, and English 
friends raised £150 to enable him regularly 
to purchase his freedom. For some years be- 



Orators. — Douglass and Washington 89 

fore the Civil War he hved in Rochester, N. Y., 
where he pubhshed a paper, The North Star, 
and where there is now a pubhc monument 
to him. Later in Hfe he became Recorder of 
Deeds in the District of Colmnbia, and then 
Minister to Hayti. At the time of his death 
in 1895 Douglass had won for himself a place 
of unique distinction. Large of heart and of 
mind, he was interested in every forward move- 
ment for his people ; but his charity embraced 
all men and all races. His reputation was in- 
ternational, and to-day many of his speeches 
are to be found in the standard works on 
oratory. 

Mr. Chesnutt has admirably summed up 
the personal characteristics of the oratory of 
Douglass. He tells us that ^'Douglass pos- 
sessed, in large measure, the physical equip- 
ment most impressive in an orator. He was 
a man of magnificent figure, tall, strong, his 
head crowned with a mass of hair which made 
a striking element of his appearance. He had 
deep-set and flashing eyes, a firm, well-moulded 
chin, a countenance somewhat severe in re- 
pose, but capable of a wide range of expression. 
His voice was rich and melodious, and of 



90 The Negro in Literature and Art 

carrj-ing power." * Douglass was distinctly 
dignified, eloquent, and majestic; he could not 
be funny or witty. Sorrow for the slave, and 
mdignation against the master, gave force to 
his words, though, in his later years, his oratory 
became less and less heavy and more refined. 
He was not always on the popular side, nor 
was he always exactly logical; thus he incurred 
much censure for his opposition to the exodus 
of the Negro from the South in 1879. For 
half a century, however, he was the outstand- 
ing figure of the race in the United States. 

Perhaps the greatest speech of his life was 
that which Douglass made at Rochester on the 
5th of July, 1852. His subject was ''American 
Slavery," and he spoke with his strongest in- 
vective. The following paragraphs from the 
introduction will serve to illustrate his fond- 
ness for interrogation and biblical phrase: 

Pardon me, and allow me to ask, Why am I called 
upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I 
represent, to do with your national independence? Are 
the great principles of pohtical freedom and of natural 
justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence 
extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to 
bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to 

• "Frederick Douglass," 107-8. 



Orators. — Douglass and Washington 91 

confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for 
the blessings resulting from your independence to us? 

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat dovra, yea, we 
wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps 
upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they 
that carried us away captive required of us a song; and 
they that had wasted us required of us mirth, saying. 
Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the 
Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, Jerusa- 
lem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not 
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
mouth.* 

The years and emancipation and the progress 
of his people in the new day gave a more hope- 
ful tone to some of the later speisches of the 
orator. In an address on the 7th of December, 
1890, he said: 

I have seen dark hours in my life, and I have seen the 
darkness gradually disappearing, and the hght gradually 
increasing. One by one I have seen obstacles removed, 
errors corrected, prejudices softened, proscriptions re- 
linquished, and my people advancing in aU the elements 
that make up the sum of general welfare. I remember 
that God reigns in eternity, and that, whatever delays, 
disappointments, and discouragements may come, truth, 
justice, liberty, and humanity will prevail.! 

* Quoted from Williams, II, 435-6. 

t Quoted from Foreword in "In Memoriam: Frederick 
Douglass." 



92 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Booker T. Washington was born about 
1858, in Franklin County, Virginia. After 
the Civil War his mother and stepfather re- 
moved to Maiden, W. Va., where, when he 
became large enough, he worked in the salt 
furnaces and the coal mines. He had always 
been called Booker, but it was not until he 
went to a little school at his home and found 
that he needed a surname that, on the spur of 
the moment, he adopted Washington. In 1872 
he worked his way to Hampton Institute, 
where he paid his expenses by assisting as a 
janitor. Graduating in 1875, he returned to 
Maiden and taught school for three years. He 
then attended for a year Wayland Seminary 
in Washington (now incorporated in Virginia 
Union University in Richmond), and in 1879 
was appointed an instructor at Hampton. In 
1881 there came to General Armstrong, prin- 
cipal of Hampton Institute, a call from the 
little town of Tuskegee, Ala., for someone to 
organize and become the principal of a normal 
school which the people wanted to start in 
that place. He recommended Mr. Washington, 
who opened the school on the 4th of July in an 
old church and a little shanty, with an attend- 



Orators. — Douglass and Washington 93 

ance of thirty pupils. In 1895 Mr. Washing- 
ton came into national prominence by a re- 
markable speech at the Cotton States Exposi- 
tion in Atlanta, and after that he interested 
educators and thinking people generally in the 
working out of his ideas of practical education. 
He was the author of several books along lines 
of industrial education and character-building, 
and in his later years only one or two other 
men in America could rival his power to at- 
tract and hold great audiences. Harvard Uni- 
versity conferred on him the degree of Master 
of Arts in 1896, and Dartmouth that of Doctor 
of Laws in 1901. He died in 1915. 

In the course of his career Mr. Washington 
dehvered hundreds of addresses on distinguished 
occasions. He was constantly in demand j^.t 
colleges and universities, great educational 
meetings, and gatherings of a civic or public 
character. His Atlanta speech is famous for 
the so-called compromise with the white South : 
"In all things that are purely social we can 
be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the 
hand in all things essential to m^utual progress.'' 
On receiving his degree at Harvard in 1896, he 
made a speech in which he emphasized the fact 



94 The Negro in Literature and Art 

that the welfare of the richest and most cul- 
tured person in New England was bound up 
with that of the humblest man in Alabama, 
and that each man was his brother's keeper. 
Along somewhat the same line he spoke the 
next year at the unveiling of the Robert Gould 
Shaw Monument in Boston. At the Chicago 
Peace Jubilee in 1898 he reviewed the conduct 
of the Negro in the wars of the United States, 
making a powerful plea for justice to a race 
that had always chosen the better part in 
the wars of the country. Mr. Washington 
delivered many addresses, but he never really 
surpassed the feeling and point and oratorical 
quality of these early speeches. The following 
paragraph from the Atlanta speech will illus- 
trate his power of vivid and apt illustration: 

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a 
friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel 
was seen a signal: "Water, water; we die of thirst!" 
The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: 
"Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time 
the signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from 
the distressed vessel, and was answered: "Cast down 
your bucket where you are." And a third and a fourth 
signal for water was answered: "Cast down your bucket 
where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, 
at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, 



Orators. — Douglass and Washington 95 

and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the 
mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who 
depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, 
or who underestimate the importance of cultivating 
friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is 
their next door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your 
bucket where you are" — cast it down in making friends 
in every manly way of the people of all races by whom 
we are surrounded.* 

The power to realize with fine feeling the 
possibilities of an occasion may be illustrated 
from the speech at Harvard: 

If through me, an humble representative, seven mil- 
lions of my people in the South might be permitted to 
send a message to Harvard— Harvard that offered up 
on death's altar young Shaw, and Russell, and Lowell, 
and scores of others, that we might have a free and united 
coimtry — that message would be. Tell them that the 
sacrifice was not in vain. Tell them that by habits of 
thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and 
college, we are coming up. We are crawUng up, working 
up, yea, bursting up — often through oppression, unjust 
discrimination and prejudice, but through them all we 
are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence, and 
property, there is no power on earth that can permanently 
stay our progress.f 

The eloquence of Douglass differed from that 
of Washington as does the power of a gifted 

* Quoted from "Story of My Life and Work," 165-6. 
t Quoted from "Story of My Life and Work," 210-11. 



96 The Negro in Literature and Art 

orator differ from the force of a finished public 
speaker. The one was subjective; the other 
was objective. Douglass swayed his audience, 
and even himself, by the sweep of his passion 
and rhetoric; Washington studied every de- 
tail and weighed every word, always keeping 
in mind the final impression to be made. 
Douglass was an idealist, impatient for the 
day of perfect fruition; Washington was an 
opportunist, making the most of each chance 
as it came. The one voiced the sorrows of the 
Old Testament, and for the moment produced 
the more tremendous effect; the other longed 
for the blessing of the New Testament and 
spoke with lasting result. Both loved their 
people and each in his own way worked as he 
could best see the light. By his earnestness 
each in his day gained a hearing; by their 
sincerity both found a place in the oratory 
not only of the Negro but of the world. 



IX 

THE STAGE 

IN no other field has the Negro with artistic 
aspirations found the road so hard as in 
that of the classic drama. In spite of the 
far-reaching influence of the Negro on American 
life, it is only within the last two years that 
this distinct racial element has begun to re- 
ceive serious attention. If we pass over Othello 
as professedly a Moor rather than a Negro, 
we find that the Negro, as he has been pre- 
sented on the English or American stage, is 
best represented by such a character as Mungo 
in the comic opera, ''The Padlock," on the 
boards at Drury Lane in 1768. Mungo is 
the slave of a West Indian planter; he be- 
comes profane in the second act and sings a 
burlesque song. Here, as elsewhere, there was 
no dramatic or sympathetic study of the race. 

Even Uncle Tom was a conventional embodi- 

97 



98 The Negro in Literature and Art 

ment of patience and meekness rather than a 
highly individuahzed character. 

On the legitimate stage the Negro was not 
wanted. That he could succeed, however, 
was shewn by such a career as that of Ira 
Aldi'idge. This distinguished actor, making 
his way from America to the freer life of 
Europe, entered upon the period of his greatest 
artistic success when, in 1833, at Covent Gar- 
den, he played Othello to the lago of Edmund 
Kean, the foremost actor of the time. He was 
universally ranked as a great tragedian. In 
the years 1852-5 he played in Germany. In 
1857 the King of Sweden invited him to visit 
Stockholm. The King of Prussia bestowed 
upon him a first-class medal of the arts and 
sciences. The Emperor of Austria compli- 
mented him with an autograph letter; the 
Czar of Russia gave him a decoration, and 
various other honors were showered upon him. 

Such is the noblest tradition of the Negro 
on the stage. In course of time, however, be- 
cause of the new blackface ministrelsy that be- 
came popular soon after the Civil War, all 
association of the Negro with the classic drama 
was effectively erased from the public mind. 



The Stage 99 

Near the turn of the century some outlet was 
found in light musical comedy. Prominent in 
the transition from minstrelsy to the new form 
were Bob Cole and Ernest Hogan; and the 
representative musical comedy companies have 
been those of Cole and Johnson, and Williams 
and Walker. Bert Williams is to-day generally 
remarked as one of the two or three foremost 
comedians on the American stage. Even musi- 
cal comedy, however, is not so prominent as 
it was ten years ago, by reason of the competi- 
tion of vaudeville and moving-pictures; and 
any representation of the Negro on the stage 
at the present time is likely to be either a 
burlesque, or, as in such pictures as those of 
''The Birth of a Nation," a deliberate and 
malicious libel on the race. 

In different ones of the Negro colleges, how- 
ever, and elsewhere, are there those who have 
dreamed of a true Negro drama — a drama that 
should get away from the minstrelsy and the 
burlesque and honestly present Negro char- 
acters face to face with all the problems that 
test the race in the crucible of American civil- 
ization. The representative institutions give 
frequent amateur productions, not only of 



100 The Negro in Literature and Art 

classical plays, but also of sincere attempts at 
the faithful portrayal of Negro character. In 
even wider fields, however, is the possibility 
of the material for serious dramatic treatment 
being tested. In the spring of 1914 "Granny 
Maumee," by Ridgely Torrence, a New York 
dramatist, was produced by the Stage Society 
of New York. The part of Granny Maumee 
was taken by Dorothy Donnelly, one of the 
most emotional and sincere of American ac- 
tresses; two performances were given, and 
Carl Van Vechten, writing of the occasion in 
the New York Press, said: ''It is as important 
an event in our theater as the first play by 
Synge was to the Irish movement." Another 
experiment was "Children," by Guy Bolton 
and Tom Carlton, presented by the Washing- 
ton Square Players in March, 1916, a little 
play in which a mother shoots her son rather 
than give him up to a lynching party. In 
April, 1917, "Granny Maumee," with two 
other short plays by Mr. Torrence, "The 
Rider of Dreams," and "Simon the Cyrenian," 
was again put on the stage in New York, this 
time with a company of colored actors, prom- 
inent among whom were Opal Cooper and Inez 



The Stage 101 

Clough. This whole production, advertised as 
*'the first colored dramatic company to appear 
on Broadway," was under the patronage of 
Mrs. Norman Hapgood and the direction of 
Robert Edmond Jones, and its success was 
such as to give hopes of much greater things in 
the future. 

Three or four other representative efforts 
within the race itself in the great field of the 
drama must be remarked. One of the most 
sincere was ''The Exile," written by E. C. 
Williams, and presented at the Howard The- 
ater in Washington, May 29, 1915, a play deal- 
ing with an episode in the life of Lorenzo de 
Medici. The story used is thoroughly dramatic, 
and that part of the composition that is in 
blank verse is of a notable degree of smooth- 
ness. ''The Star of Ethiopia," by Dr. DuBois, 
was a pageant, elaborately presented. Origi- 
nally produced in New York in 1913, it also 
saw performances in Washington and Phila- 
delphia. The spring of 1916 witnessed the 
beginning of the work of the Edward Sterling 
Wright Players, of New York. This company 
used the legitimate drama and made a favor- 
able impression, especially by its production of 



103 The Negro in Literature and Art 

''Othello." At present special interest attaches 
to the work of the Lafayette Players in New 
York, who have already made conunendable 
progress in the production of popular plays. 

The field is comparatively new. It is, how- 
ever, one peculiarly adapted to the ability of 
the Negro race, and at least enough has been 
done so far to show that both Negro effort 
in the classic drama and the serious portrayal 
of Negro life on the stage are worthy of re- 
spectful consideration. 



I'/' 



« 



X 

I 

PAINTERS. — HENRY O. TANNER 

PAINTING has long been a medium through 
which the artistic spirit of the race yearned 
to find expression. As far back as in the 
work of PhilUs Wheatley there is a poem 
addressed to "S. M." (Scipio Moorhead), "sl 
young African painter," one of whose subjects 
was the story of Damon and Pythias. It was 
a hundred years more, however, before there 
was really artistic production. E. M. Ban- 
nister, whose home was at Providence, though 
little known to the younger generation, was 
very prominent forty years ago. He gathered 
about himself a coterie of artists and rich men 
that formed the nucleus of the Rhode Island 
Art Club, and one of his pictures took a medal 
at the Centennial Exposition of 1876. William 
A. Harper, who died in 1910, was a product 
of the Chicago Art Institute, at whose exhibi- 
tions his pictures received much favorable com- 

103 



104 The Negro in Literature and Art 

ment about 1908 and 1910. On his return from 
his fii'st period of study in Paris his "Avenue of 
Poplars" took a prize of one hundred dollars 
at the Institute. Other typical subjects were 
"The Last Gleam," "The Hillside," and "The 
Gray Dawn." Great hopes were awakened a 
few years ago by the landscapes of Richard 
L. Brown; and the portrait work of Edwin A. 
Harleston is destined to become better and 
better known. William E. Scott, of Indian- 
apolis, is becoming more and more distinguished 
in mural work, landscape, and portraiture, and 
among all the painters of the race now working 
in this country is outstanding. He has spent 
several years in Paris. "La Pauvre Voisine," 
accepted by the Salon in 1912, was afterwards 
bought by the Argentine government. A sec- 
ond picture exhibited in the Salon in 1913, "La 
Misere," was reproduced in the French cata- 
logue and took first prize at the Indiana State 
Fair the next year. "La Connoisseure " was 
exliibited in the Royal Academy in London in 
1913. Mr. Scott has done the mural work in 
ten public schools in Chicago, four in Indian- 
apolis, and especially was he commissioned by 
the city of Indianapolis to decorate two units 




HENRY O. TANNER 



Painters. — Henry 0. Tanner 105 

in the city hospital, this task embracing three 
hundred Ufe-size figures. Some of his effects 
in coloring are very striking, and in several of 
his recent pictures he has emphasized racial 
subjects. 

The painter of assured fame and command- 
ing position is Henry Ossawa Tanner. 

The early years of this artist were a record 
of singular struggle and sacrifice. Born in 
Pittsburgh in 1859, the son of a minister of 
very limited means, he received his early edu- 
cation in Philadelphia. For years he had to 
battle against uncertain health. In his thir- 
teenth year, seeing an artist at work, he decided 
that he too would become a painter, and he 
afterwards became a student at the Pennsyl- 
vania Academy of Fine Arts. While still a 
very young man, he attempted drawings of 
all sorts and sent these to various New York 
publishers, only to see them promptly returned. 
A check, however, for forty dollars for one that 
did not return' encouraged him, and a picture, 
"A Lion at Home," from the exhibition of the 
Academy of Design, brought eighty dollars. 
He now became a photographer in Atlanta, 
Ga., but met with no real success; and for 



106 The Negro in Literature and Art 

two years he taught drawing at Clark Univer- 
sity in Atlanta. In this period came a summer 
of struggle in the mountains of North Caro- 
lina, and the knowledge that a picture that 
had originally sold for fifteen dollars had 
brought two hundred and fifty dollars at an 
auction in Philadelphia. Desiring now to go 
to Europe, and being encouraged by Bishop 
and Mrs. Hartzell, the young painter gave in 
Cincinnati an exhibition of his work. The ex- 
hibition failed; not a picture was regularly 
sold. Bishop and Mrs. Hartzell, however, 
gave the artist a sum for the entire collection, 
and thus equipped he set sail for Rome, January 
4, 1891, going by way of Liverpool and Paris. 
In the story of his career that he contributed 
to the World's Work some years ago, Mr. 
Tanner gave an interesting account of his 
early days in Paris. Acquaintance with the 
great French capital induced him to abandon 
thoughts of going to Rome; but there followed 
five years of pitiless economy, broken only 
by a visit to Philadelphia, where he sold some 
pictures. He was encouraged, however, by 
Benjamin Constant and studied in the Julien 
Academy. In his early years he had given 



Painters. — Henry 0. Tanner 107 

attention to animals and landscape, but more 
and more he was drawn towards religious sub- 
jects. "Daniel in the Lions' Den" in the Salon 
in 1896 brought "honorable mention," the 
artist's first official recognition. He was in- 
spired, and very soon afterwards he made his 
first visit to Palestine, the land that was after- 
wards to mean so much to him in his work. 
"The Resurrection of Lazarus," in 1897, was 
bought by the French government, and now 
hangs in the Luxembourg. The enthusiasm 
awakened by this picture was so great that a 
friend wrote to the painter at Venice: "Come 
home. Tanner, to see the crowds behold your 
picture." After twenty years of heart-breaking 
effort Henry Tanner had become a recognized 
artist. His later career is a part of the history 
of the world's art. He won a third-class medal at 
the Salon in 1897, a second-class medal in 
1907, second-class medals at the Paris Exposi- 
tion in 1900, at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901, 
and at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, a 
gold medal at San Francisco in 1915, the 
Walter Lippincott Prize in Philadelphia in 
1900, and the Harris Prize of five hundred 
dollars, in 1906, for the best picture in the 



lOS The Negro in Literature and Art 

annual exhibition of American paintings at the 
Chicago Art Institute. 

Mr. Tanner's later Hfe has been spent in 
Paris, with trips to the Far East, to Palestine, 
to Egypt, to Algiers, and Morocco. Some 
years ago he joined the colony of artists at 
Trepied, where he has built a commodious 
home and studio. Miss MacChesney has de- , 
scribed this for us: ''His studio is an ideal 
workroom, being high-ceilinged, spacious, and 
having the least possible furniture, utterly free 
from masses of useless studio stuff and para- 
phernalia. The walls are of a light gray, and 
at one end hangs a fine tapestry. Oriental 
carved wooden screens are at the doors and 
windows. Leading out of it is a small room 
having a domed ceiling and picturesque high 
windows. In this simply furnished room he 
often poses his models, painting himself in the 
large studio, the sliding door between being a 
small one. He can often make use of lamp- 
light effects, the daylight in the larger room 
not interfering." Within recent years the 
artist has kept pace with some of the newer 
schools by brilliant exiDerimentation in color 
and composition. Moonlight scenes appeal 



Painters. — Henry 0. Tanner 109 

to him most. He seldom paints other than 
bibhcal subjects, except perhaps a portrait 
such as that of the Khedive or Rabbi Wise. 
A landscape may attract him, but it is sure 
to be idealized. He is thoroughly romantic 
in tone, and in spirit, if not in technique, 
there is much to connect him with Holman 
Hunt, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. In fact he 
long had in mind, even if he has not actually 
worked out, a picture entitled, ''The Scape- 
goat." 

''The Annunciation," as well as "The Res- 
urrection of Lazarus," was bought by the French 
government; and "The Two Disciples at the 
Tomb" was bought by the Chicago Art In- 
stitute. "The Bagpipe Lesson" and "The 
Banjo Lesson" are in the library at Hampton 
Institute. Other prominent titles are: "Christ 
and Nicodemus," "Jews Waiting at the Wall 
of Solomon," "Stephen Before the Council," 
"Moses and the Burning Bush," "The Mothers 
of the Bible" (a series of five paintings of 
Mary, Hagar, Sarah, Rachel, and the mother 
of Moses, that marked the commencement of 
paintings containing all or nearly all female 
figures), "Christ at the Home of Mary and 



no The Negro in Literature and Art 

Martha," ''The Return of the Holy Women," 
and ''The Five Virgins." Of "Christ and His 
Disciples on the Road to Bethany," one of 
the most remarkable of all the pictures for 
subdued coloring, the painter says, "I have 
taken the tradition that Christ never spent 
a day in Jerusalem, but at the close of day 
went to Bethany, returning to the city of 
strife in the morning." Of "A Flight into 
Egypt" he says: "Never shall I forget the 
magnificence of two Persian Jews that I once 
saw at Rachel's Tomb; what a magnificent 
'Abraham' either one of them would have 
made! Nor do I forget a ride one stormy 
Christmas night to Bethlehem. Dark clouds 
swept the moonlit skies and it took little im- 
agination to close one's eyes to the flight of 
time and see in those hurrying travelers the 
crowds that hurried Bethlehemward on that 
memorable night of the Nativity, or to trans- 
pose the scene and see in each hurrying group 
'A Flight into Egypt.'" As to which one of 
all these pictures excels the others critics are 
not in perfect agi'eement. "The Resurrection 
of Lazurus" is in subdued coloring, while 
"The Annunciation" is noted for its effects of 



Painters. — Henry 0. Tanner 111 

light and shade. This latter picture must in 
any case rank very high in any consideration 
of the painter's work. It is a powerful por- 
trayal of the Virgin at the moment when she 
learns of her great mission. 

Mr. Tanner has the very highest ideals for 
his art. These could hardly be better stated 
than in his own words: ''It has very often 
seemed to me that many painters of religious 
subjects (in our time) seem to forget that 
their pictures should be as much works of art 
(regardless of the subject) as are other paint- 
ings with less holy subjects. To suppose that 
the fact of the religious painter having a more 
elevated subject than his brother artist makes 
it unnecessary for him to consider his picture 
as an artistic production, or that he can be 
less thoughtful about a color harmony, for in- 
stance, than he who selects any other subject, 
simply proves that he is less of an artist than 
he who gives the subject his best attention." 
Certainly, no one could ever accuse Henry 
Tanner of insincere workmanship. His whole 
career is an inspiration and a challenge to 
aspiring painters, and his work is a monument 
of sturdy endeavor and exalted achievement. 



XI 

SCULPTORS. — META WARRICK FULLER 

IN sculpture, as well as in painting, there 
has been a beginning of highly artistic 
achievement. The first person to come into 
prominence was Edmonia Lewis, born in New 
York in 1845. A sight of the statue of Franklin, 
in Boston, inspired within this young woman 
the desh'e also to "make a stone man." Gar- 
rison introduced her to a sculptor who encour- 
aged her and gave her a few suggestions, but 
altogether she received little instruction in her 
art. In 1865 she attracted considerable at- 
tention by a bust of Robert Gould Shaw, 
exhibited in Boston. In this same year she 
went to Rome to continue her studies, and two 
years later took up her permanent residence 
there. Among her works are: "The Freed- 
woman," "The Death of Cleopatra" (exliibited 
at the exposition in Philadelphia in 1876), 
\slccp," "The IMarriage of Hiawatha," and 

112 



IC 




META WARRICK FULLER 



Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 113 

"Madonna with the Infant Christ." Among 
her busts in terra cotta are those of John 
Brown, Charles Sumner, Lincoln, and Long- 
fellow. Most of the work of Edmonia Lewis 
is in Europe. More recently the work of Mrs. 
May Howard Jackson, of Washington, has 
attracted the attention of the discerning. This 
sculptor has made several busts, among her 
subjects being Rev. F. J. Grimke and Dr. 
DuBois, and ''Mother and Child" is one of 
her best studies. Bertina Lee, of Trenton, 
N. J., is one of the promising young sculptors. 
She is from the Trenton Art School and has 
already won several valuable prizes. 

The sculptor at the present time of assured 
position is Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller. 

Meta Vaux Warrick was born in Philadelphia, 
June 9, 1877. She first compelled serious 
recognition of her talent by her work in the 
Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, for 
which she had won a scholarship, and which 
she attended for four years. Here one of her 
first original pieces in clay was a head of 
Medusa, which, with its hanging jaw, beads of 
gore, and eyes starting from their sockets, 
marked her as a sculptor of the horrible. In 



llJi- The Negro in Literature and Art 

her graduating year, 1898, she won a prize 
for metal work by a crucifix upon which hung 
the figure of Christ torn by anguish, also honor- 
able mention for her work in modeling. In 
her post-graduate year she won the George K. 
Crozier first prize for the best general work in 
modeling for the year, her particular piece 
being the "Procession of Arts and Crafts." 
In 1899 the young student went to Paris, where 
she worked and studied for three years, chiefly 
at Colarossi's Academy. Her work brought 
her in contact with St. Gaudens and other 
artists; and finally there came a day when 
the great Rodin himself, thrilled by the figure 
in ''Secret Sorrow," a man represented as eat- 
ing his heart out, in the attitude of a father 
beamed upon the young woman and said, 
"Mademoiselle, you are a sculptor; you have 
the sense of form." "The Wretched," one of 
the artist's masterpieces, was exhibited in the 
Salon in 1903, and along with it went "The 
Impenitent Thief"; and at one of Byng's ex- 
hibitions in L'Art Nouveau galleries it was re- 
marked of her that "under her strong and 
supple hands the clay has leaped into form: 
a whole turbulent world seems to have forced 



Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 115 

itself into the cold and dead material." On 
her return to America the artist resumed her 
studies at the School of Industrial Art, winning, 
in 1904, the Battles first prize for pottery. In 
1907 she was called on for a series of tableaux 
representing the advance of the Negro, for the 
Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, and later 
(1913) for a group for the New York State 
Emancipation Proclamation Commission. In 
1909 Meta Vaux Warrick became the wife of 
Dr. Solomon C. Fuller, of Framingham, Mass. 
A disastrous fire in 1910 destroyed some of 
her most valuable pieces while they were in 
storage in Philadelphia. Only a few examples 
of her early work, that for one reason or an- 
other happened to be elsewhere, were saved. 
In May, 1914, however, she had sufficiently 
recovered from this blow to be able to hold 
a pubhc exhibition of her work. Mrs. Fuller 
resides in Framingham, has a happy family 
of three boys, and in the midst of a busy life 
still finds some time for the practice of her art. 
The fire of 1910 destroyed the following 
productions: Secret Sorrow, Silenus, (Edipus, 
Brittany Peasant, Primitive Man, two of the 
heads from Three Gray Women, Peeping Tom, 



116 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Falstaff, Oriental Dancer, Portrait of William 
Thomas, The "Wrestlers, Death in the Wind, 
Desespoir, The Man with a Thorn, The Man 
who Laughed, the Two-Step, Sketch for a 
Monument, Wild Fire, and the following 
studies in Afro- American types : An Old Woman, 
The Schoolboy, The Comedian (George W. 
Walker), The Student, The Artist, and Mu- 
latto Child, as well as a few unfinished pieces. 
Such a misfortune has only rarely befallen a 
rising artist. Some of the sculptor's most re- 
markable work was included in the list just 
given. 

Fortunately surviving were the following: 
The Wretched (cast in bronze and remaining 
in Europe), Man Carrying Dead Body, Medusa, 
Procession of Arts and Crafts, Portrait of the 
late William Still, John the Baptist (the only 
piece of her work made in Paris that the 
sculptor now has), Sylvia (later destroyed by 
accident), and Study of Expression. 

The exhibition of 1914 included the follow- 
ing: A Classic Dancer, Brittany Peasant (a 
reproduction of the piece destroyed). Study of 
Woman's Head, ''A Drink, Please" (a statu- 
ette of Tommy Fuller), Mother and Baby, 



Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 117 

A Young Equestrian (Tommy Fuller), ''So 
Big" (Solomon Fuller, Jr.), Menelik II of 
Abyssinia, A Girl's Head, Portrait of a Child, 
The Pianist (portrait of Mrs. Maud Cuney 
Hare), Portrait of S. Coleridge-Taylor, Relief 
Study of a Woman's Head, Medallion Por- 
trait of a Child (Tommy Fuller), Medallion 
Portrait of Dr. A. E. P. Rockwell, Statuette of 
a Woman, Second model of group made for the 
New York State Emancipation Proclamation 
Commission (with two fragments from the 
final model of this), Portrait of Dr. A. E. P. 
Rockwell, Four Figures (Spring, Summer, 
Autumn, Winter) for over-mantel panel, Por- 
trait-Bust of a Child (Solomon Fuller, Jr.), 
Portrait-Bust of a Man (Dr. S. C. Fuller), 
John the Baptist, Danse Macabre, Menelik 
II in profile. Portrait of a Woman, The Jester. 
Since 1914 the artist has produced several 
of her strongest pieces. "Peace Halting the 
Ruthlessness of War" in May, 1917, took a 
second prize in a competition under the aus- 
pices of the Massachusetts Branch of the 
Woman's Peace Party. Similarly powerful are 
''Watching for Dawn," "Mother and Child," 
"Immigrant in America," and "The Silent 



118 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Appeal." Noteworthy, too, are ''The Flower- 
Holder," ''The Fountain-Boy," and "Life in 
Quest of Peace." The sculptor has also pro- 
duced numerous statuettes, novelties, etc., for 
commercial purposes, and just now she is at 
work on a motherhood series. 

From time to time one observes in this 
enumeration happy subjects. Such, for in- 
stance, are "The Dancing Girl," "The Wres- 
tlers," and "A Young Equestrian." These are 
frequently winsome, but, as will be shown in 
a moment, they are not the artist's character- 
istic productions. Nor was the Jamestown 
series of tableaux. This was a succession of 
fourteen groups (originally intended for seven- 
teen) containing in all one hundred and fifty 
figures. The purpose was by the construction 
of appropriate models, dramatic groupings, and 
the use of proper scenic accessories, to trace 
in chronological order the general progress of 
the Negro race. The whole, of course, had its 
peculiar interest for the occasion; but the 
artist had to work against unnumbered handi- 
caps of every sort; her work, in fact, was not 
so much that of a sculptor as a designer; and, 
while the whole production took considerable 



Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 119 

energy, she has naturally never regarded it 
as her representative work. 

Certain productions, however, by reason of 
their unmistakable show of genius, call for 
special consideration. These are invariably 
tragic or serious in tone. 

Prime in order, and many would say in 
power, is "The Wretched." Seven figures 
representing as many forms of human anguish 
greet the eye. A mother yearns for the loved 
ones she has lost. An old man, wasted by 
hunger and disease, waits for death. Another, 
bowed by shame, hides his face from the sun. 
A sick child is suffering from some terrible 
hereditary trouble; a youth realizes with de- 
spair that the task before him is too great for 
his strength; and a woman is afflicted with 
some mental disease. Crowning all is the 
philosopher, who, suffering through sympathy 
with the others, realizes his powerlessness to 
relieve them and gradually sinks into the stoni- 
ness of despair. 

"The Impenitent Thief," admitted to the 
Salon along with "The Wretched," was de- 
moUshed in 1904, after being subjected to a 
series of unhappy accidents. It also defied 



120 The Negro in Literature and Art 

convention. Heroic in size, the thief hung on 
the cross, all the while distorted by anguish. 
Hardened, unsympathetic, blasphemous, he was 
still superb in his presumption, and he was 
one of the artist's most powerful conceptions. 

''Man Carrying Dead Body" portrays a 
scene from a battlefield. In it the sculptor 
has shown the length to which duty will spur 
one on. A man bears across his shoulder the 
body of a comrade that has evidently lain on 
the battlefield for days, and though the thing 
is horrible, he lashes it to his back and totters 
under the great weight until he can find a place 
for decent burial. To every one there comes 
such a duty; each one has his own burden to 
bear in silence. 

Two earlier pieces, "Secret Sorrow," and 
"CEdipus," had the same marked character- 
istics. The first represented a man, worn and 
gaunt, as actually bending his head and eating 
out his own heart. The figure was the per- 
sonification of lost ambition, shattered ideals, 
and despair. For ''(Edipus" the sculptor 
chose the hero of the old Greek legend at the 
moment when, realizing that he has killed his 
father and married his mother, he tears his 



Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 121 

eyes out. The artist's later conception, ''Three 
Gray Women," from the legend of Perseus, 
was in similar vein. It undertook to portray 
the GrsesB, the three sisters who had but one 
eye and one tooth among them. 

Perhaps the most haunting creation of Mrs. 
Fuller is ''John the Baptist." With head 
shghtly upraised and with eyes looking into 
the eternal, the prophet rises above all sordid 
earthly things and soars into the divine. All 
faith and hope and love are in his face, all 
poetry and inspiration in his eyes. It is a 
conception that, once seen, can never be for- 
gotten. 

The second model of the group for the New 
York State Emancipation Proclamation Com- 
mission (two feet high, the finished group as 
exhibited being eight feet high) represents a 
recently emancipated Negro youth and maiden 
standing beneath a gnarled, decapitated tree 
that has the semblance of a human hand 
stretched over them. Humanity is pushing 
them out into the world, while at the same 
time the hand of Fate, with obstacles and 
drawbacks, is restraining them in the exer- 
cise of their new freedom. In the attitudes 



132 The Negro in Literature and Art 

of the two figures is strikingly portrayed the 
uncertainty of those embarking on a new life, 
and in their countenances one reads all the 
eagerness and the courage and the hope that 
is theirs. The whole is one of the artist's 
most ambitious efforts. 

"Immigrant in America" was inspired by two 
lines from Robert Haven Schauffler's ''Scum 
of the Earth": 

Children in whose frail arms shall rest 
Prophets and singers and saints of the West. 

An American mother, the parent of one strong 
healthy child, is seen welcoming the immigrant 
mother of manj' children to the land of plenty. 
The work is capable of wide application. Along 
\N-ith it might be mentioned a suffrage medalHon 
and a smaller piece, ''The Silent Appeal." 
This last is a very strong piece of work. It 
represents the mother capable of producing 
and caring for three children as making a silent 
request for the suffrage (or peace, or justice, 
or any other noble cause). The work is char- 
acterized by a singular note of dignity. 

"Peace Halting the Ruthlessness of War," 
the recent prize piece, represents War as 



Sculptors. — Meta Warrick Fuller 123 

mounted on a mighty steed and trampling to 
death helpless human beings, while in one hand 
he bears a spear on which he has impaled the 
head of one of his victims. As he goes on in 
what seems his irresistible career Peace meets 
him on the way and commands him to cease 
his ravages. The work as exhibited was in 
gray-green wax and treated its subject with 
remarkable spirit. It must take rank as one 
of the four or five of the strongest productions 
of the artist. 

Meta Warrick Fuller's work may be said to 
fall into two di^dsions, the romantic and the 
social. The first is represented by such things 
as ''The Wretched" and "Secret Sorrow," the 
second by ''Immigrant in America" and "The 
Silent Appeal." The transition may be seen 
in "Watching for Dawn," a group that shows 
seven figures, in various attitudes of prayer, 
watchfulness, and resignation, as watching for 
the coming of daylight, or peace. In technique 
this is like "The Wretched," in spirit it is like 
the later work. It is as if the sculptor's own 
seer, John the Baptist, had, by his \dsion, sum- 
moned her away from the ghastly and homble 
to the everyday problems of needy humanity. 



124 The Negro in Literature and Art 

There are many, however, who hope that she 
will not utterly forsake the field in which she 
first became famous. Her early work is not 
deUcate or pretty; it is gruesome and terrible; 
but it is also intense and vital, and from it 
speaks the very tragedy of the Negro race. 



XII 

MUSIC 

THE foremost name on the roll of Negro 
composers is that of a man whose home 
was in England, but who in so many ways 
identified himself with the Negroes of the 
United States that he deserves to be consid- 
ered here. He visited America, found the in- 
spiration for much of his best work in African 
themes, and his name at once comes to mind 
in any consideration of the history of the 
Negro in music. 

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor* (1875-1912) was 
born in London, the son of a physician who 
was a native of Sierra Leone, and an English 
mother. He began the study of the violin 
when he was no more than six years old, and 
as he grew older he emphasized more and more 

* This account of Coleridge-Taylor is based largely, but 
not wholly, upon the facts as given in Grove's Dictionary of 
Music (1910 edition, Macmillan). The article on the com 
poser ends with a fairly complete hst of works up to 1910. 

125 



1^3 The Negro in Literature and Art 

the violin and the piano. At the age of ten he 
entered the choir of St. George's, at Croydon, 
and a Httle later became alto singer at St. 
Mary Magdalene's, Croydon. In 1890 he en- 
tered the Royal College of Music as a student 
of the violin; and he also became a student of 
Stanford's in composition, in which department 
he won a scholarship in 1893. In 1894 he was 
graduated with honor. His earliest published 
work was the anthem, ''In Thee, O Lord" 
(1892); but he gave frequent performances of 
chamber music at student concerts in his 
earlier years; one of his symphonies was pro- 
duced in 1896 under Stanford's direction, and 
"a quintet for clarinet and strings in F sharp 
minor (played at the Royal College in 1895) 
was given in Berlin by the Joachim Quartet, 
and a string quartet in D minor dates from 
1896." Coleridge-Taylor became world-famous 
by the production of the first part of his 
"Hiawatha" trilogy, ''Hiawatha's Wedding- 
Feast," at the Royal College, November 11, 
1898. He at once took rank as one of the 
foremost living English composers. The second 
part of the trilogy, "The Death of Minne- 
haha," was given at the North Staff ordshu-e 



Music 127 

Festival in the autumn of 1899; and the third, 
"Hiawatha's Departure," by the Royal Choral 
Society, in Albert Hall, March 22, 1900. The 
whole work was a tremendous success such 
as even the composer himself never quite 
duplicated. Requests for new compositions for 
festival purposes now became numerous, and 
in response to the demand were produced 
"The Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille " (Leeds, 
1901), "Meg Blaiie" (Sheffield, 1902), "The 
Atonement" (Hereford, 1903), and "Kubla 
Khan" (Handel Society, 1906). Coleridge- 
Taylor also wrote the incidental music for the 
four romantic plays by Stephen Phillips pro- 
duced at His Majesty's Theatre, as follows: 
"Herod," 1900; "Ulysses," 1901; "Nero," 
1902; "Faust," 1908; as well as incidental 
music for "Othello" (the composition for the 
orchestra being later adapted as a suite for 
pianoforte), and for "A Tale of Old Japan," 
the words of which were by Alfred Noyes. 
In 1904 he was appointed conductor of the 
Handel Society. The composer's most dis- 
tinctive work is probably that reflecting his 
interest in the Negro folk-song. "Character- 
istic of the melancholy beauty, barbaric color, 



12S The Negro in Literature and Art 

charm of musical rhythm and vehement passion 
of the true Negro music are his symphonic 
pianoforte selections based on Negro melodies 
from Africa and America: the ^African Suite/ 
a group of pianoforte pieces, the ^African Ro- 
mances' (words by Paul L. Dunbar), the 
'Songs of Slavery,' 'Three Choral Ballads' 
and 'African Dances,' and a suite for violin 
and pianoforte." * The complete list of the 
works of Coleridge-Taylor would include also 
the following: "Southern Love Songs," 
"Dream-Lovers" (an operetta), "Gipsy Suite" 
(for violin and piano), "Solemn Prelude" (for 
orchestra, first produced at the Worcester Fes- 
tival, 1899), "Nourmahal's Song and Dance" 
(for piano), "Scenes from an Everyday Ro- 
mance," "Ethiopia Saluting the Colors" (con- 
cert march for orchestra), "Five Choral Bal- 
lads" to words by Longfellow (produced at 
the Norwich Festival, 1905), "Moorish Dance" 
(for piano), "Six Sorrow Songs," several vocal 
duets, and the anthems, "Now Late on the 
Sabbath Day," "By the Waters of Babylon," 
"The Lord is My Strength," "Lift Up Your 
Heads," "Break Forth into Joy," and "0 

* Crisis, October, 1912. 



Music 129 

Ye that Love the Lord." Among the things 
pubhshed since his death are his ''Viking 
Song," best adapted for a male chorus, and a 
group of pianoforte and choral works. 

In America the history of conscious musical 
effort on the part of the Negro goes back even 
many years before the Civil War. ''Some of 
the most interesting music produced by the 
Negro slaves was handed down from the days 
when the French and Spanish had possession 
of Louisiana. From the free Negroes of 
Louisiana there sprang up, during slavery days, 
a number of musicians and artists who dis- 
tinguished themselves in foreign countries to 
which they removed because of the prejudice 
which existed against colored people. Among 
them was Eugene Warburg, who went to 
Italy and distinguished himself as a sculptor. 
Another was Victor Sejour, who went to Paris 
and gained distinction as a poet and composer 
of tragedy. The Lambert family, consisting 
of seven persons, were noted as musicians. 
Richard Lambert, the father, was a teacher of 
music; Lucien Lambert, a son, after much 
hard study, became a composer of music. 
Edmund Ded6, who was born in New Orleans 



130 The Negro in Literature and Art 

in 1829, learned while a youth to play a number 
of instruments. He accumulated enough money 
to pay his passage to France. Here he took 
up a special study of music, and finally became 
director of the orchestra of L' Alcazar, in Bor- 
deaux, France." * 

The foremost composer of the race to-day is 
Harry T. Burleigh, who within the last few 
years has won a place not only among the 
most prominent song-writers of America, but 
of the world. He has emphasized compositions 
in classical vein, his work displaying great 
technical excellence. Prominent among his 
later songs are ''Jean," the "Saracen Songs," 
''One Year (1914-1915)," the "Five Songs" of 
Laurence Hope, set to music, "The Young 
Warrior" (the words of which were written by 
James W. Johnson), and "Passionale" (four 
songs for a tenor voice, the words of which 
were also by Mr. Johnson). Nearly two years 
ago, at an assemblage of the Italo-American 
Rehef Committee at the Biltmore Hotel, New 
York, Mr. Amato, of the Metropolitan Opera, 
sang with tremendous effect, "The Young 
WaiTior," and the Italian version has later 

* Wasliington: "The Story of the Negro," II, 276-7. 




HARRY T. BURLEIGH. 



Music 131 

been used all over Italy as a popular song in 
connection with the war. Of somewhat stronger 
quality even than most of these songs are ''The 
Grey Wolf," to words by Arthm' Symons, ''The 
Soldier," a setting of Rupert Brooke's well 
known sonnet, and "Ethiopia Saluting the 
Colors." An entirely different division of Mr. 
Burleigh's work, hardly less important than 
his songs, is his various adaptations of the Negro 
melodies, especially for choral work; and he 
assisted Dvorak in his "New World Sym- 
phony," based on the Negro folk-songs. For 
his general achievement in music he was, in 
1917, awarded the Spingarn Medal. His work 
as a singer is reserved for later treatment. 

Another prominent composer is Will Marion 
Cook. Mr. Cook's time has been largely given 
to the composition of popular music; at the 
same time, however, he has produced numerous 
songs that bear the stamp of genius. In 1912 
a group of his tuneful and characteristic pieces 
was published by Schirmer. Generally his 
work exhibits not only unusual melody, but 
also excellent technique. J. Rosamond John- 
son is also a composer with many original 
ideas. Like Mr. Cook, for years he gave much 



132 The Negro in Literature and Art 

attention to popular music. More recently he 
has been director of the New York Music 
Settlement, the first in the country for the 
general cultivation and popularizing of Negro 
music. Among his later songs are: ''I Told 
My Love to the Roses," and ''Morning, Noon, 
and Night." In pure melody Mr. Johnson is 
not surpassed by any other musician of the 
race to-day. His long experience with large 
orchestras, moreover, has given him unusual 
knowledge of instrumentation. Carl Diton, 
organist and pianist, has so far been interested 
chiefly in the transcription for the organ of 
representative Negro melodies. "Swing Low, 
Sweet Chariot" was published by Schirmer and 
followed by ''Four Jubilee Songs." R. Nathaniel 
Dett has the merit, more than others, of at- 
tempting to write in large form. His carol, 
"Listen to the Lambs," is especially note- 
worthy. Representative of his work for the 
piano is his "Magnolia Suite." This was pub- 
lished by the Clayton F. Summy Co., of Chi- 
cago. As for the very young men of promise, 
special interest attaches to the work of Edmund 
T. Jenkins, of Charleston, S. C, who three 
years ago made his way to the Royal Academy 



Music 133 

in London. Able before he left to perform 
brilliantly on half a dozen instruments, this 
young man was soon awarded a scholarship; 
in 1916-17 he was awarded a silver medal for 
excellence on the clarinet, a bronze medal for 
his work on the piano, and, against brilliant 
competition, a second prize for his original 
work in composition. The year also witnessed 
the production of his "Prelude Rehgieuse" at 
one of the grand orchestral concerts of the 
Academy. 

Outstanding pianists are Raymond Augustus 
Lawson, of Hartford, Conn., and Hazel Har- 
rison, now of New York. Mr. Lawson is a 
true artist. His technique is very highly de- 
veloped, and his style causes him to be a 
favorite concert pianist. He has more than 
once been a soloist at the concerts of the Hart- 
ford Philharmonic Orchestra, and has appeared 
on other noteworthy occasions. He conducts 
at Hartford one of the leading studios in New 
England. Miss Harrison has returned to 
America after years of study abroad, and now 
conducts a studio in New York. She was a 
special pupil of Busoni and has appeared in 
many noteworthy recitals. Another prominent 



134 The Negro in Literature and Art 

pianist is Roy W. Tibbs, now a teacher at 
Howard University. Helen Hagan, who a few 
years ago was awarded the Sanford scholarship 
at Yale for study abroad, has since her return 
from France given many excellent recitals; 
and Ethel Richardson, of New York, has had 
several very distinguished teachers and is in 
general one of the most promising of the 
younger performers. While those that have 
been mentioned could not possibly be over- 
looked, there are to-day so many noteworthy 
pianists that even a most competent and well- 
informed musician would hesitate before passing 
judgment upon them. Prominent among the 
organists is Melville Charlton, of Brooklyn, 
an associate of the American Guild of Organ- 
ists, who has now won for himself a place 
among the foremost organists of the United 
States, and who has also done good work as a 
composer. He is still a young man and from 
him may not unreasonably be expected many 
years of high artistic endeavor. Two other 
very prominent organists are William Herbert 
Bush, of New London, Conn., and Frederick 
P. White, of Boston. Mr. Bush has for thirty 
years filled his position at the Second Congre- 



Music 135 

gational Church, of New London, and has also 
given much time to composition. Mr. White, 
also a composer, for twenty-five years had 
charge of the instrument in the First Methodist 
Episcopal Church, of Charlestown, Mass. Ex- 
cellent vioHnists are numerous, but in con- 
nection with this instrument especially must 
it be remarked that more and more must the 
line of distinction be drawn between the work 
of a pleasing and talented performer and the 
effort of a conscientious and painstaking artist. 
Foremost is Clarence Cameron White, of Bos- 
ton. Prominent also for some years has been 
Joseph Douglass, of Washington. Felix Weir, 
of Washington and New York, has given un- 
usual promise; and Kemper Harreld, of Chi- 
cago and Atlanta, also deserves mention. In 
this general sketch of those who have added 
to the musical achievement of the race there 
is a name that must not be overlooked. "Blind 
Tom," who attracted so much attention a 
generation ago, deserves notice as a prodigy 
rather than as a musician of solid accomplish- 
ment. His real name was Thomas Bethune, 
and he was born in Columbus, Ga., in 1849. 
He was peculiarly susceptible to the influences 



136 The Negro in Literature and Art 

of nature, and imitated on the piano all the 
sounds he knew. Without being able to read 
a note he could play from memory the most 
difficult compositions of Beethoven and Men- 
delssohn. In phonetics he was especially skill- 
ful. Before his audiences he would commonly 
invite any of his hearers to play new and 
difficult selections, and as soon as a rendering 
was finished he would himself play the com- 
position without making a single mistake. 

Of those who have exhibited the capabilities 
of the Negro voice in song it is but natural 
that sopranos should have been most distin- 
guished. Even before the Civil War the race 
produced one of the first rank in Elizabeth 
Taylor Greenfield, who came into prominence 
in 1851. This artist, born in Mississippi, was 
taken to Philadelphia and there cared for by 
a Quaker lady. Said the Daily State Register, 
of Albany, after one of her concerts: ''The 
compass of her marvelous voice embraces 
twenty-seven notes, reaching from the sonorous 
bass of a baritone to a few notes above even 
Jenny Lind's highest." A voice with a range 
of more than three octaves naturally attracted 
much attention in both England and America, 



Music 137 

and comparisons with Jenny Lind, then at the 
height of her great fame, were frequent. After 
her success on the stage Miss Greenfield be- 
came a teacher of music in Philadelphia. 
Twenty-five years later the Hyers Sisters, 
Anna and Emma, of San Francisco, started on 
their memorable tour of the continent, winning 
some of their greatest triumphs in critical New 
England. Anna Hyers especially was remarked 
as a phenomenon. Then arose Madame Selika, 
a cultured singer of the first rank, and one who, 
by her arias and operatic work generally, as 
well as by her mastery of language, won great 
success on the continent of Europe as well as 
in England and America. The careers of two 
later singers are so recent as to be still fresh 
in the public memory; one indeed may still 
be heard on the stage. It was in 1887 that 
Flora Batson entered on the period of her 
greatest success. She was a ballad singer and 
her work at its best was of the sort that sends 
an audience into the wildest enthusiasm. Her 
voice exhibited a compass of three octaves, 
from the purest, most clear-cut soprano, sweet 
and full, to the rich round notes of the baritone 
register. Three or four years later than Flora 



138 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Batson in her period of greatest artistic success 
was Mrs. Sissieretta Jones. The voice of this 
singer, when it first attracted wide attention, 
about 1893, commanded notice as one of un- 
usual richness and volume, and as one ex- 
hibiting especially the plaintive quality ever 
present in the typical Negro voice. 

At the present time Harry T. Burleigh in- 
stantly commands attention. For twenty years 
this singer has been the baritone soloist at 
St. George's Episcopal Church, New York, 
and for about half as long at Temple Emanu-El, 
the Fifth Avenue Jewish synagogue. As a 
concert and oratorio singer Mr. Burleigh has 
met with signal success. Of the younger men, 
Roland W. Hayes, a tenor, is outstanding. He 
has the temperament of an artist and gives 
promise of being able to justify expectations 
awakened by a voice of remarkable quality. 
Withm recent years Mme. Anita Patti Brown, 
a product of the Chicago conservatories, has 
also been prominent as a concert soloist. She 
sings with simphcity and ease, and in her 
voice is a sympathetic quahty that makes a 
ready appeal to the heart of an audience. 
Just at present Mme. Mayme Calloway Byron, 



Music 139 

most recently of Chicago, seems destined within 
the near future to take the very high place 
that she deserves. This great singer has but 
lately returned to America after years of study 
and cultivation in Europe. She has sung in 
the principal theaters abroad and was just on 
the eve of filUng an engagement at the Opera 
Comique when the war began and forced her to 
change her plans. 

In this general review of those who have 
helped to make the Negro voice famous, men- 
tion must be made of a remarkable company 
of singers who first made the folk-songs of 
the race known to the world at large. In 
1871 the Fisk Jubilee Singers began their 
memorable progress through America and Eu- 
rope, meeting at first with scorn and sneers, 
but before long touching the heart of the 
world with their strange music. The original 
band consisted of four young men and five 
young women; in the seven years of the ex- 
istence of the company altogether twenty-four 
persons were enrolled in it. Altogether, these 
singers raised for Fisk University one hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars, and secured school 
books, paintings, and apparatus to the value 



140 The Negro in Literature and Art 

of seven or eight thousand more. They sang 
in the United States, England, Scotland, Ire- 
land, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany, 
sometimes before royalty. Since their time 
they have been much imitated, but hardly 
ever equaled, and never surpassed. 

This review could hardly close without men- 
tion of at least a few other persons who have 
worked along distinctive lines and thus con- 
tributed to the general advance. Pedro T. 
Tinsley is director of the Choral Study Club 
of Chicago, which has done much work of 
real merit. Lulu Vere Childers, director of 
music at Howard University, is a contralto 
and an excellent choral director; while John 
W. Work, of Fisk University, by editing and 
directing, has done much for the preserva- 
tion of the old melodies. Mrs. E. Azalia Hack- 
ley, for some years prominent as a concert 
soprano, has recently given her time most 
largely to the work of teaching and showing 
the capabilities of the Negro voice. Possessed 
of a splendid musical temperament, she has 
enjoyed the benefit of three years of foreign 
study, has published '^A Guide to Voice Cul- 
ture," and generally inspired many younger 



Music 141 ' 

singers or performers. Mrs. Maud Cuney 
Hare, of Boston, a concert pianist, has within 
the last few years eUcited much favorable 
comment from cultured persons by her lecture- 
recitals deaHng with Afro - American music. 
In these she has been assisted by William H. 
Richardson, baritone soloist of St. Peter's 
Episcopal Church, Cambridge. Scattered 
throughout the country are many other capa- 
ble teachers or promising young artists. 



APPENDIX 



1. THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN FICTION 

EVER since Sydney Smith sneered at American 
books a hundred years ago, honest critics have 
asked themselves if the literature of the United States 
was not really open to the charge of provincialism. 
Within the last year or two the argument has been 
very much revived; and an English critic, Mr. 
Edward Garnett, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, 
has pointed out that with our predigested ideas 
and made-to-order fiction we not only discourage 
individual genius, but make it possible for the mul- 
titude to think only such thoughts as have passed 
through a sieve. Our most popular novelists, and 
sometimes our most respectable writers, see only 
the sensation that is uppermost for the moment in 
the mind of the crowd — divorce, graft, tainted 
meat or money — and they proceed to cut the cloth 
of their fiction accordingly. Mr. Owen Wister, a 
"regular practitioner" of the novelist's art, in sub- 
stance admitting the weight of these charges, lays 
the blame on our crass democracy which utterly 
refuses to do its own thinking and which is satisfied 
only with the tinsel and gewgaws and hobbyhorses 
of literature. And no theme has suffered so much 
from the coarseness of the mob-spirit in literature 
as that of the Negro, 
As a matter of fact, the Negro in his problems 

145 



146 The Negro in Literature and Art 

and strivings offers to American writers the greatest 
opportunity that could possibly be given to them 
to-day. It is commonly agreed that only one other 
large question, that of the relations of capital and 
labor, is of as much interest to the American pub- 
lic; and even this great issue fails to possess quite 
the appeal offered by the Negro from the social 
standpoint. One can only imagine what a Victor 
Hugo, detached and philosophical, would have 
done with such a theme in a novel. When we see 
what actually has been done — how often in the 
guise of fiction a writer has preached a sermon or 
shouted a pohtical creed, or vented his spleen — 
we are not exactly proud of the art of novel-writing 
as it has been developed in the United States of 
America. Here was opportunity for tragedy, for 
comedy, for the subtle portrayal of all the relations 
of man with his fellow man, for faith and hope 
and love and sorrow. And yet, with the Civil War 
fifty years in the distance, not one novel or one 
short story of the first rank has found its inspiration 
in this great theme. Instead of such work we have 
consistently had traditional tales, political tracts, 
and lurid melodramas. 

Let us see who have approached the theme, and 
just what they have done with it, for the present 
leaving out of account all efforts put forth by Negro 
writers themselves. 

The names of four exponents of Southern life 
come at once to mind — George W. Cable, Joel 
Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, and Thomas 
Dixon; and at once, in their outlook and method 
of work, the first two become separate from the 



Appendix 14^ 

last two. Cable and Harris have looked toward the 
past, and have embalmed vanished or vanishing 
types. Mr. Page and Mr. Dixon, with their thought 
on the present (though for the most part they 
portray the recent past), have used the novel as a 
vehicle for political propaganda. 

It was in 1879 that "Old Creole Days" evidenced 
the advent of a new force in American literature; 
and on the basis of this work, and of "The Grandis- 
simes" which followed, Mr. Cable at once took his 
place as the foremost portrayer of life in old New 
Orleans. By birth, by temperament, and by train- 
ing he was thoroughly fitted for the task to which 
he set himself. His mother was from New England, 
his father of the stock of colonial Virginia; and 
the stern Puritanism of the North was mellowed 
by the gentler influences of the South. Moreover, 
from his long apprenticeship in newspaper work 
in New Orleans he had received abundantly the 
knowledge and training necessary for his work. 
Setting himself to a study of the Negro of the old 
regime, he made a specialty of the famous — and 
infamous — quadroon society of Louisiana of the 
third and fourth decades of the last century. And 
excellent as was his work, turning his face to the 
past in manner as well as in matter, from the very 
first he raised the question propounded by this 
paper. In his earliest volume there was a story 
entitled "'Tite Poulette," the herouie of which was 
a girl amazingly fair, the supposed daughter of 
one Madame John. A young Dutchman fell in 
love with 'Tite Poulette, championed her cause at 
all times, suffered a beating and stabbing for her, 



148 The Negro in Literature and Art 

and was by her nursed back to life and love. In 
the midst of his perplexity about joining himself 
to a member of another race, came the word from 
Madame John that the girl was not her daughter, 
but the child of yellow fever patients whom she 
had nursed until they died, leaving their infant in 
her care. Immediately upon the publication of 
this story, the author received a letter from a young 
woman who had actually lived in very much the 
same situation as that portrayed in "'Tite Pou- 
lette," telling him that his story was not true to 
life and that he knew it was not, for Madame 
John really was the mother of the heroine. Accept- 
ing the criticism, Mr. Cable set about the composi- 
tion of "Madame Delphine," in which the situation 
is somewhat similar, but in which at the end the 
mother tamely makes a confession to a priest. 
What is the trouble? The artist is so bound by 
circumstances and hemmed in by tradition that he 
simply has not the courage to launch out mto the 
deep and work out his human problems for himself. 
Take a representative portrait from "The Grandis- 
simes": 

Clemence had come through ages of African savagery, 
through fires that do not refine, but that blunt and blast 
and blacken and char; starvation, gluttony, drunken- 
ness, tliirst, drowning, nakedness, dirt, fetichism, de- 
bauchery, slaughter, pestilence, and the rest — she was 
their heiress; they left her the cinders of human feelings. 
. . . She had had children of assorted colors — had one with 
her now, the black boy that brought the basil to Joseph; 
the others were here and there, some in the Grandissime 
households or field-gangs, some elsewhere within occasional , 



Appendix 149 

sight, some dead, some not accounted for. Husbands — 
like the Samaritan woman's. We know she was a con- 
stant singer and laugher. 

Very brilliant of course; and yet Clemence is a 
relic, not a prophecy. 

Still more of a relic is Uncle Remus. For decades 
now, this charming old Negro has been held up 
to the children of the South as the perfect expression 
of the beauty of life in the glorious times "befo' 
de wah," when every Southern gentleman was 
suckled at the bosom of a "black mammy." Why 
should we not occasionally attempt to paint the 
Negro of the new day — intelligent, ambitious, 
thrifty, manly? Perhaps he is not so poetic; but 
certainly the human element is greater. 

To the school of Cable and Harris belong also 
of course Miss Grace King and Mrs. Ruth McEnery 
Stuart, a thoroughly representative piece of work 
being Mrs. Stuart's ''Uncle 'Riah's Christmas Eve." 
Other more popular writers of the day. Miss Mary 
Johnston and Miss Ellen Glasgow for instance, 
attempt no special analysis of the Negro. They 
simply take him for granted as an institution that 
always has existed and always will exist, as a hewer 
of wood and drawer of water, from the first flush 
of creation to the sounding of the trump of doom. 
• But more serious is the tone when we come to 
Thomas Nelson Page and Thomas Dixon. We 
might tarry for a few minutes with Mr. Page to 
listen to more such tales as those of Uncle Remus; 
but we must turn to living issues. Times have 
changed. The grandson of Uncle Remus does not 



150 The Negro in Literature and Art 

feel that he must stand with his hat in his hand 
when he is in our presence, and he even presumes 
to help us in the running of our government. This 
will never do; so in "Red Rock" and "The Leop- 
ard's Spots" it must be shown that he should 
never have been allowed to vote anyway, and those 
honorable gentlemen in the Congress of the United 
States in the year 1865 did not know at all what 
they were about. Though we are given the char- 
acters and setting of a novel, the real business is to 
show that the Negro has been the "sentimental 
pet" of the nation all too long. By all means let 
us have an innocent white girl, a burly Negro, and 
a burning at the stake, or the story would be in- 
complete. 

We have the same thing in "The Clansman," 
a "drama of fierce revenge." But here we are con- 
cerned very largely with the blackening of a man's 
character. Stoneman (Thaddeus Stevens very thin- 
ly disguised) is hunself the whole Congress of the 
United States. He is a gambler, and "spends a 
part of almost every night at Hall & Pemberton's 
Faro Place on Pennsylvania Avenue." He is hys- 
terical, "drunk with the joy of a triumphant 
vengeance." "The South is conquered soil," he 
says to the President (a mere figure-head, by the 
way), "I mean to blot it from the map." Further: 
"It is but the justice and wisdom of heaven that 
the Negro shall rule the land of his bondage. It 
is the only solution of the race problem. Wait 
until I put a ballot in the hand of every Negro, and 
a bayonet at the breast of every white man from 
the James to the Rio Grande." Stoneman, moreover, 



Appendix 151 

has a mistress, a mulatto woman, a "yellow vam- 
pire" who dominates him completely. "Senators, 
representatives, politicians of low and high degree, 
artists, correspondents, foreign ministers, and cabi- 
net officers hurried to acknowledge their fealty to 
the uncrowned king, and hail the strange brown 
woman who held the keys of his house as the first 
lady of the land." This, let us remember, was for 
some months the best-selling book in the United 
States. A slightly altered version of it has very 
recently commanded such prices as were never be- 
fore paid for seats at a moving-picture entertain- 
ment; and with "The Traitor" and "The South- 
erner" it represents our most popular treatment of 
the gravest social question in American hfe! "The 
Clansman" is to American literature exactly what 
a Louisiana mob is to American democracy. Only 
too frequently, of course, the mob represents us 
all too well. 

Turning from the longer works of fiction to the 
short story, I have been interested to see how the 
matter has been dealt with here. For purposes of 
comparison I have selected from ten representative 
periodicals as many distinct stories, no one of which 
was published more than ten years ago; and as 
these are in almost every case those stories that first 
strike the eye in a periodical index, we may assume 
that they are thoroughly typical. The ten are: 
"Shadow," by Harry Still well Edwards, in the 
Century (December, 1906); "Callum's Co'tin': A 
Plantation Idyl," by Frank H. Sweet, in the 
Craftsman (March, 1907); "His Excellency the 
Governor," by L. M. Cooke, in Putnam's (Febru- 



152 The Negro in Literature and Art 

arj^ 1908); "The Black Drop," by Margaret De- 
land in Collier's Weekly (May 2 and 9, 1908); 
"Jungle Blood," by Elmore Elliott Peake, in Mc- 
Clure's (September, 1908); "The Race-Rioter," by 
Harris Merton Lyon, in the American (February, 
1910); "Shadow," by Grace MacGowan Cooke 
and Alice MacGowan, in Everybody's (March, 
1910); "Abram's Freedom," by Edna Turpin, in 
the Atlantic (September, 1912); "A Hypothetical 
Case," by Norman Duncan, in Harper's (June, 
1915); and "The Chalk Game," by L. B. Yates, in 
the Saturday Evening Post (June 5, 1915). For 
high standards of fiction I think we may safely 
say that, all in all, the periodicals here mentioned 
are representative of the best that America has to 
offer. In some cases the story cited is the only one 
on the Negro question that a magazine has pub- 
lished within the decade. 

"Shadow" (in the Century) is the story of a Negro 
convict who for a robbery committed at the age 
of fourteen was sentenced to twenty years of hard 
labor in the mines of Alabama. An accident dis- 
abled him, however, and prevented his doing the 
regular work for the full period of his imprisonment. 
At twenty he was a hostler, looldng forward in 
despau- to the fourteen years of confinement still 
waitmg for him. But the three little girls of the 
prison commissioner visit the prison. Shadow per- 
forms many little acts of kindness for them, and 
their hearts go out to him. They storm the governor 
and the judge for his pardon, and present the Negro 
with his freedom as a Christmas gift. The story is 
not long, but it strikes a note of genuine pathos. 



Appendix 153 

"Callum's Co'tin'" is concerned with a hard- 
working Negro, a blacksmith, nearly forty, who 
goes courting the girl who called at his shop to get 
a trinket mended for her mistress. At first he makes 
himself ridiculous by his finery; later he makes the 
mistake of coming to a crowd of merrymakers in 
his working clothes. More and more, however, 
he storms the heart of the girl, who eventually 
capitulates. From the standpoint simply of crafts- 
manship, the story is an excellent piece of work. 

"His Excellency the Governor" deals with the 
custom on Southern plantations of having, in imi- 
tation of the white people, a Negro "governor" 
whose duty it was to settle minor disputes. At the 
death of old Uncle Caleb, who for years had held 
this position of responsibility, his son Jubal should 
have been the next in order. He was likely to be 
superseded, however, by loud-mouthed Sambo, 
though urged to assert himself by Maria, his wife, 
an old house-servant who had no desire whatever 
to be defeated for the place of honor among the 
women by Sue, a former field-hand. At the meeting 
where all was to be decided, however, Jubal with 
the aid of his fiddle completely confounded his 
rival and won. There are some excellent touches 
in the story; but, on the whole, the composition 
is hardly more than fair in literary quality. 

"The Black Drop," throughout which we see 
the hand of an experienced writer, analyzes the 
heart of a white boy who is in love with a girl who 
is almost white, and who when the test confronts 
him suffers the tradition that binds him to get the 
better of his heart. "But you will still believe that 



154 The Negro in Literature and Art 

I love you?" he asks, ill at ease as they separate. 
"No, of course I can not believe that," replies the 
girl. 

"Jungle Blood" is the story of a simple-minded, 
simple-hearted Negro of gigantic size who in a 
moment of fury kills his pretty wife and the white 
man who has seduced her. The tone of the whole 
may be gleaned from the description of Moss 
Harper's father: "An old darky sat drowsing on 
the stoop. There was something ape-like about 
his long arms, his fiat, wide-nostriled nose, and the 
mat of gray wool which crept down his forehead to 
within two inches of his eyebrows." 

"The Race-Rioter" sets forth the stand of a 
brave young sheriff to protect his prisoner, a Negro 
boy, accused of the assault and murder of a little 
white girl. Hank Egge tries by every possible 
subterfuge to defeat the plans of a lynching party, 
and finally dies riddled with bullets as he is defend- 
ing his prisoner. The story is especially remarkable 
for the strong and sympathetic characterization 
of such contrasting figures as young Egge and old 
Dikeson, the father of the dead girl. 

"Shadow" (in Everybody's) is a story that de- 
pends for its force very largely upon incident. 
It studies the friendship of a white boy, Ranny, 
and a black boy, Shadow, a relationship that is 
opposed by both the Northern white mother and 
the ambitious and independent Negro mother. 
In a fight. Shad breaks a collar-bone for Ranny; 
later he saves him from drownmg. In the face of 
Ranny's white friends, all the harsher side of the 
problem is seen; and yet the human element is 



Appendix 165 

strong beneath it all. The story, not without 
considerable merit as it is, would have been infinitely 
stronger if the friendship of the two boys had been 
pitched on a higher plane. As it is, Shad is very 
much like a dog following his master. 

"Abram's Freedom" is at the same time one of 
the most clever and one of the most provoking 
stories with which we have to deal. It is a perfect 
example of how one may walk directly up to the 
light and then deliberately turn his back upon it. 
The story is set just before the Civil War. It deals 
with the love of the slave Abram for a free young 
woman, Emmeline. "All his life he had heard and 
used the phrase 'free nigger' as a term of contempt. 
What, then, was this vague feeling, not definite 
enough yet to be a wish or even a longing?" So 
far, so good. Emmeline inspires within her lover 
the highest ideals of manhood, and he becomes 
a hostler in a livery-stable, paying to his master 
so much a year for his freedom. Then comes the 
astounding and forced conclusion. At the very 
moment when, after years of effort, Emmeline has 
helped her husband to gain his freedom (and when 
all the slaves are free as a matter of fact by virtue 
of the Emancipation Proclamation), Emmeline, 
whose husband has special reason to be grateful 
to his former master, says to the lady of the house: 
"Me an' Abram ain't got nothin' to do in dis worl' 
but to wait on you an' master." 

In "A Hypothetical Case" we again see the 
hand of a master-craftsman. Is a white boy jus- 
tified in shooting a Negro who has offended him? 
The white father is not quite at ease, quibbles a 



156 The Negro in Literature and Art 

good deal, but finally says Yes. The story, how- 
ever, makes it clear that the Negro did not strike 
the bo3^ He was a hermit living on the Florida 
coast and perfectly abased when he met Mercer 
and his two companions. When the three boys 
pursued him and finally overtook him, the Negro 
simply held the hands of Mercer until the boy had 
recovered his temper. Mercer in his rage really 
struck himself. 

"The Chalk Game" is the story of a little Negro 
jockey who wins a race in Louisville only to be 
drugged and robbed by some "flashlight" Negroes 
who send him to Chicago. There he recovers his 
fortimcs by giving to a group of gamblers the cor- 
rect "tip" on another race, and he makes his way 
back to Louisville much richer by his visit. Through- 
out the story emphasis is placed upon the super- 
stitious element in the Negro race, an element 
readily considered by men who believe in luck. 

Of these ten stories, only five strike out with 
even the slightest degree of independence. " Shadow " 
(in the Century) is not a powerful piece of work, 
but it is written in tender and beautiful spirit. 
"The Black Drop" is a bold handling of a strong 
situation. "The Race-Rioter" also rings true, and 
in spite of the tragedy there is optimism in this 
story of a man who is not afraid to do his 
duty. "Shadow" (in Everybody's) awakens all 
sorts of discussion, but at least attempts to deal 
honestly with a situation that might arise in any 
neighborhood at any tune. "A Hypothetical Case" 
is the most tense and independent story in the list. 

On the other hand, "Callum's Co'tin'" and 



Appendix 157 

"His Excellency the Governor," bright comedy 
though they are, belong, after all, to the school of 
Uncle Remus. "Jungle Blood" and "The Chalk 
Game" belong t« the class that always regards the 
Negro as an animal, a minor, a plaything — but 
never as a man. "Abram's Freedom," exceedingly 
well written for two-thirds of the way, falls down 
hopelessly at the end. Many old Negroes after 
the Civil War preferred to remain with their former 
masters; but certainly no young woman of the 
type of Emmeline would sell her birthright for a 
mess of pottage. 

Just there is the point. That the Negro is ever 
to be taken seriously is incomprehensible to some 
people. It is the story of "The Man that Laughs" 
over again. The more Gwynplaine protests, the 
more outlandish he becomes to the House of Lords. 

We are simply asking that those writers of fiction 
who deal with the Negro shall be thoroughly honest 
with themselves, and not remain forever content 
to embalm old types and work over outworn ideas. 
Rather should they sift the present and forecast 
the future. But of course the editors must be con- 
sidered. The editors must give their readers what 
the readers want; and when we consider the popu- 
lace, of course we have to reckon with the mob. 
And the mob does not find anything very attractive 
about a Negro who is intelligent, cultured, manly, 
and who does not smile. It will be observed that 
in no one of the ten stories above mentioned, 
not even in one of the five remarked most favor- 
ably, is there a Negro of this type. Yet he is 
obliged to come. America has yet to reckon with 



158 The Negro in Literature and Art 

him. The day of Uncle Remus as well as of Uncle 
Tom is over. 

Even now, however, there are signs of better 
things. Such an artist as Mr. Howells, for instance, 
has once or twice dealt with the problem in excellent 
spirit. Then there is the work of the Negro writers 
themselves. The numerous attempts in fiction 
made by them have most frequently been open to 
the charge of crassness already considered; but 
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles W. Chesnutt, and 
W. E. Burghardt DuBois have risen above the 
crowd. Mr. Dunbar, of course, was better in 
poetry than in prose. Such a short story as "Jim- 
sella," however, exhibited considerable technique. 
"The Uncalled" used a living topic treated with 
only partial success. But for the most part, Mr. 
Dunbar's work looked toward the past. Somewhat 
stronger in prose is Mr. Chesnutt. "The Marrow 
of Tradition" is not much more than a political 
tract, and "The Colonel's Dream" contains a good 
deal of preaching; but "The House Behind the 
Cedars" is a real novel. Among his short stories, 
"The Bouquet" may be remarked for technical 
excellence, and "The Wife of His Youth" for a 
situation of unusual power. Dr. DuBois's "The 
Quest of the Silver Fleece" contains at least one 
strong ^dramatic situation, that in which Bles 
probes the heart of Zora; but the author is a 
sociologist and essayist rather than a novelist. 
The grand epic of the race is yet to be produced. 

Some day we shall work out the problems of 
our great country. Some day we shall not have a 
state government set at defiance, and the massacre 



Appendix 159 

of Ludlow. Some day our little children will not 
slave in mines and mills, but will have some chance 
at the glory of God's creation; and some day the 
Negro will cease to be a problem and become a 
human being. Then, in truth, we shall have the 
Promised Land. But until that day comes let 
those who mold our ideals and set the standards 
of our art in fiction at least be honest with them- 
selves and independent. Ignorance we may for a 
time forgive; but a man has only himself to blame 
if he insists on not seeing the sunrise in the new 
day. 



2. STUDY OF BIBLIOGRAPHY 

THE following bibliography, while aiming at ? 
fair degree of completeness for [books and ar- 
ticles coming within the scope of this volmne, cau 
not be finally complete, because so to make it would 
be to cover very largely the great subject of the 
Negro Problem, only one phase of which is here 
considered. The aim is constantly to restrict the 
discussion to that of the literary and artistic life 
of the Negro; and books primarily on economic, 
social, or theological themes, however interesting 
within themselves, are generally not included. 
Booker T. Washington may seem to be an excep- 
tion to this; but the general importance of the 
books of this author would seem to demand their 
inclusion, especially as some of them touch directly 
on the subject of present interest. 



BOOKS BY SIX MOST PEOMINENT AUTHORS 

Wheatley, Phillis (Mrs. Peters). 

Poem on the Death of the Reverend George 

Whitefield. Boston, 1770. 
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. 
London and Boston, 1773. 

160 



Appendix 161 

Elegy Sacred to the Memory of Dr. Samuel 
Cooper. Boston, 1784. 

Liberty and Peace. Boston, 1784. 

Letters, edited by Charles Deane. Boston, 1864. 
(Note. — The bibliography of the work of 
Phillis Wheatley is now a study within itself. 
Titles just enumerated are only for what may 
be regarded as the most important original 
sources. The important volume, that of 1773, 
is now very rare and valuable. Numerous 
reprints have been made, among them the 
following: Philadelphia, 1774; Philadelphia, 
1786; Albany, 1793; Philadelphia, 1801; Wal- 
pole, N. H., 1802; Hartford, 1804; Halifax, 
1813; "New England," 1816; Denver, 1887; 
Philadelphia, 1909 (the last being the accessible 
reprint by R. R. and C. C. Wright, A. M. E. 
Book Concern). Note also Memoir of Phillis 
Wheatley, by B. B. Thatcher, Boston, 1834; 
and Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley 
(memoir by Margaretta Matilda Odell), Bos- 
ton, 1834, 1835, and 1838, the three editions 
in rapid succession being due to the anti- 
slavery agitation. Not the least valuable 
part of Deane's 1864 edition of the Letters is 
the sketch of Phillis Wheatley, by Nathaniel 
B. Shurtleff, which it contains. This was first 
printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, Dec. 
21, 1863. It is brief, but contains several facts 
not to be found elsewhere. Duyckinck's 
Cyclopaedia of American Literature (1855 and 
1866) gave a good review and reprinted from 
the Pennsylvania Magazine the correspondence 



163 The Negro in Literature and Art 

with Washington, and the poem to Washington, 
also "Liberty and Peace." Also important 
for reference is Oscar Wegelin's Compilation 
of the Titles of Volumes of Verse — Early Amer- 
ican Poetry, New York, 1903. Note also The 
Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley, by G. 
Herbert Renfro, edited by Leila Amos Pendle- 
ton, Washington, 1916. The whole matter of 
bibliography has recently been exhaustively 
studied in Heartman's Historical Series, in beau- 
tiful books of limited editions, as follows: (1) 
Phillis Wheatley: A Critical Attempt and a 
Bibliography of Her Writings, by Charles Fred 
Heartman, New York, 1915; (2) Phillis Wheat- 
ley: Poems and Letters. First Collected Edi- 
tion, Edited by Charles Fred Heartman, with 
an Appreciation by Arthur A. Schomburg, New 
York, 1915; (3) Six Broadsides relating to Phillis 
Wheatley, New York, 1915. These books are 
of the first order of importance, and yet they 
awaken one or two questions. One wonders why 
"To Msecenas," "On Virtue," and "On Being 
Brought from Africa to America," all very early 
work, were placed near the end of the poems in 
"Poems and Letters"; nor is the relation be- 
tween "To a Clergyman on the Death of His 
Lady," and "To the Rev. Mr. Pitkin on the 
Death of His Lady," made clear, the two poems, 
evidently different versions of the same subject, 
being placed pages apart. The great merit of 
the book, however, is that it adds to "Poems 
on Various Subjects" the four other poems not 
generally accessible: (1) To His Excellency, 



Appendix 163 

George Washington; (2) On Major-General 
Lee; (3) Liberty and Peace; (4) An Elegy 
Sacred to the Memory of Dr. Samuel Cooper. 
The first of Heartman's three volumes gives 
a list of books containing matter on Phillis 
Wheatley. To this may now be added the 
following magazine articles, none of which 
contain matter primarily original: (1) Christian 
Examiner, Vol. XVI, p. 169 (Review by W. J. 
Snelling of the 1834 edition of the poems); 
(2) Knickerbocker, Vol. IV, p. 85; (3) North 
American Review, Vol. 68, p. 418 (by Mrs. E. 
F. EUet); (4) London Athenceum for 1835, 
p. 819 (by Rev. T. FUnt); (5) Historical 
Magazine for 1858, p. 178; (6) Catholic World, 
Vol. 39, p. 484, July, 1884; (7) Chautauquan, 
Vol. 18, p. 599, February, 1894 (by Pamela 
Mc Arthur Cole). 

Dunbar, Paul Laurence. 
Life and Works, edited by Lida Keck Wiggins. 

J. L. Nichols & Co., Naperville, 111., 1907. 
The following, with the exception of the 

sketch at the end, were all published by Dodd, 

Mead & Co., New York. 
Poem^: 

Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896. 

Lyrics of the Hearthside, 1899. 

Lyrics of Love and Laughter, 1903. 

Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow, 1905. 

Complete Poems, 1913. 
Specially Illustrated Volumes of Poems: 

Poems of Cabin and Field, 1899. 



164 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Candle-Lightin' Time, 1901. 

When Malindy Sings, 1903. 

Li'l' Gal, 1904. 

Howdy, Honey, Howdy, 1905. 

Joggin' Erlong, 1906. 

Speakin' o' Christmas, 1914. 
Novels: 

The Uncalled, 1896. 

The Love of Landry, 1900. 

The Fanatics, 1901. 

The Sport of the Gods, 1902. 
Stones and Sketches: 

Folks from Dixie, 1898. 

The Strength of Gideon, and Other Stories, 1900. 

In Old Plantation Days, 1903. 

The Heart of Happy Hollow, 1904. 

Uncle Eph's Christmas, a one-act musical 
sketch, Washington, 1900. 

Chesnutt, Charles Waddell. 
Frederick Douglass: A Biography. Small, May- 

nard & Co., Boston, 1899. 
The Conjure Woman (stories). Houghton Mifflin 

Co., Boston, 1899. 
The Wife of His Youth, and Other Stories of 

the Color-line. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 

1899. 
The House Behind the Cedars (novel). Houghton 

Mifflin Co., Boston, 1900. 
The Marrow of Tradition (novel). Houghton 

Mifflin Co., Boston, 1901. 
The Colonel's Dream (novel). Doubleday, Page 

& Co., New York, 1905. 



Appendix 165 

DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. 

Suppression of the African Slave-Trade. Long- 
mans, Green & Co., New York, 1896 (now 
handled through Harvard University Press, 
Cambridge) . 

The Philadelphia Negro. University of Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia, 1899. 

The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. 
A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1903. 

The Negro in the South (with Booker T. 
Washington). Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Phila- 
delphia, 1907. 

John Brown (in American Crisis Biographies). 
Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1909. 

The Quest of the Silver Fleece (novel). A. C. 
McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1911. 

The Negro (in Home University Library Series). 
Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1915. 

Braithwaite, William Stanley. 
Lyrics of Life and Love. H. B. Turner & Co., 

Boston, 1904. 
The House of Falling Leaves (poems). J. W. 

Luce & Co., Boston, 1908. 
The Book of Elizabethan Verse (anthology). 

H. B. Turner & Co., Boston, 1906. 
The Book of Georgian Verse (anthology). Bren- 

tano's. New York, 1908. 
The Book of Restoration Verse (anthology). 

Brentano's, New York, 1909. 
Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913 (including 

the Magazines and the Poets, a^review). 

Cambridge, Mass., 1913. 



166 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1914. Cam- 
bridge, Mass., 1914. 

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1915. Gomme 
& Marshall, New York, 1915. 

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1916. Laurence 
J. Gomme, New Yjrk, 1916. 

The Poetic Year (for 1916) : A Critical Anthology. 
Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1917. 

Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1917. Small, 
Maynard & Co., Boston. 

Edwin Arlington Robinson, in "Contemporary 
American Poets Series," aimounced for early 
publication by the Poetry Review Co., Cam- 
bridge, Mass. 

Washington, Booker Taliaferro. 

The Future of the American Negro. Small, 
Maynard & Co., Boston, 1899. 

The Story of My Life and Work. NicholsI& 
Co., Naperville, 111., 1900. 

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography. Double- 
day, Page & Co., New York, 1901. ■ 

Character Building. Doubleday, Page & Co., 
New York, 1902. 

Working With the Hands. Doubleday, Page & 
Co., New York, 1904. 

Putting the Most Into Life. Crowell & Co., New 
York, 1906. 

Frederick Douglass (in American Crisis Biogra- 
phies). Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 
1906. 

The Negro in the South (with W. E. B. DuBois). 
Geo. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 1907. 



Appendix 167 

The Negro in Business. Hertel, Jenkins & Co., 

Chicago, 1907. 
The Story of the Negro. Doubleday, Page & 

Co., New York, 1909. 
My Larger Education. Doubleday, Page & Co., 

Garden City, N. Y., 1911. 
The Man Farthest Down (with Robert Emory 

Park). Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, 

N. Y., 1912. 

II 

ORIGINAL WORKS BY OTHER AUTHORS 

Brown, William Wells: Clotelle: A Tale of the 
Southern States. Redpath, Boston, 1864 (first 
printed London, 1853). 

Carmichael, Waverley Turner: From the Heart 
of a Folk, and Other Poems. The Cornhill Co., 
Boston, 1917. 

Douglass, Frederick : Life and Times of Frederick 
Douglass. Park Publishing Co., Hartford, Conn., 
1881 (note also "Narrative of Life," Boston, 
1846; and "My Bondage and My Freedom," 
MUler, New York, 1855). 

Dunbar, Alice Moore (Mrs. Nelson) : The Good- 
ness of St. Rocque, and Other Stories. Dodd, 
Mead & Co., New York, 1899. 

Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence (edited). 
The Bookery Publishing Co., New York, 1914. 

Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins: Poems on 
Miscellaneous Subjects. Boston, 1854, 1856; 
also Merrihew & Son, Philadelphia, 1857, 1866 
(second series), 1871. 



16S The Negro in Literature and Art 

Moses: ;A Story of the Nile. Merrihew & Son, 

Philadelphia, 1869. 
Sketches of Southern Life. Merrihew & Son, 
Philadelphia, 1872. 
HoRTON, George Moses: The Hope of Liberty. 
Gales & Son, Raleigh, N. C., 1829 (note also 
"Poems by a Slave," bound with Poems of 
Phillis Wheatley, Boston, 1838). 
Johnson, Georgia Douglas: The Heart of a 
Woman, and Other Poems. The Cornhill Co., 
Boston, 1917. 
Johnson, Fenton: A Little Dreaming. Peterson 
Linotyping Co., Chicago, 1913. 

Visions of the Dusk. Trachlenburg Co., New 

York, 1915. 
Songs of the Soil. Trachlenburg Co., New 
York, 1916. 
Johnson, James W.: Autobiography of an Ex- 
Colored Man (published anonymously). Sher- 
man, French & Co., Boston, 1912. 

Fifty Years and Other Poems, with an Intro- 
duction by Brander Matthews. The Corn- 
hill Co., Boston, 1917. 
Margetson, George Reginald: The Fledgling 
Bard and the Poetry Society. R. G. Badger, 
Boston, 1916. 
McGiRT, James E. : For Your Sweet Sake. John C. 

Winston Co., Philadelphia, 1909. 

Miller, Kelly: Race Adjustment. The Neale 

Publishing Co., New York and Washington, 1908. 

Out of the House of Bondage. The Neale 

Publishing Co., New York and Washington, 

1914. 



Appendix 169 

Whitman, Albert A.: Not a Man and Yet a 
Man. Springfield, Ohio, 1877. 

Twasinta's Seminoles, or The Rape of Florida. 
Nixon-Jones Printing Co., St. Louis, Mo., 1884. 

Drifted Leaves. Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 
St. Louis, 1890 (this being a collection of 
two former works with miscellanies). 

An Idyl of the South, an epic poem in two 
parts (Part I, The Octoroon; Part II, The 
Southland's Charms and Freedom's Magni- 
tude) . The Metaphysical Publishing Co., New 
York, 1901. 

Ill 

BOOKS DEALING IN SOME MEASURE WITH THE LIT- 
ERARY AND ARTISTIC LIFE OF THE NEGRO 

Brown, William Wells: The Black Man, His 
Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements. 
Hamilton, New York, 1863. 

Child, Lydia Maria: The Freedman's Book. 
Ticknor & Fields, Boston, 1865. 

Cromwell, John W.: The Negro in American 
History. The American Negro Academy, Wash- 
ington, 1914. 

CuLP, D. W. : Twentieth Century Negro Literature. 
J. L. Nichols & Co., Naperville, 111., 1902. 

Ellis, George W.: Negro Culture in West Africa. 
The Neale Publishing Co., New York, 1914. 

Fenner, Thomas P.: Religious Folk-Songs of the 
Negro (new edition). The Institute Press, Hamp- 
ton, Va., 1909. 



170 The Negro in Literature and Art 

Gregory, James M.: Frederick Douglass the 
Orator. Willey & Son, Springfield, Mass., 1893 
(note also "In Memoriam: Frederick Douglass," 
John C. Yorston & Co., Philadelphia, 1897). 

Hatcher, William E.: John Jasper. Fleming H. 
Revell Co., New York, 1908. 

Holland, Frederic May: Frederick Douglass, the 
Colored Orator. Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 
1891 (rev. 1895). 

Hubbard, Elbert: Booker Washington in "Little 
Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers." 
The Roycrofters, East Aurora, N. Y., 1908. 

Krehbiel, Henry E.: Afro-American Folk-Songs. 
G. Schirmer, New York & London, 1914. 

Pike, G. D. : The Jubilee Singers. Lee & Shepard, 
Boston, 1873. 

Riley, Benjamin F. : The Life and Times of Booker 
T. Washington. Fleming H. Revell Co., New 
York, 1916. 

Sayers, W. C. Berwick: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: 
Musician; His Life and Letters. Cassell & Co., 
London and New York, 1915. 

Schomburg, Arthur A. : A Bibliographical Check- 
list of American Negro Poetry. New York, 1916. 

Scott, Emmett J., and Stowe, Lyman Beecher: 
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. 
Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y. 1916 
(note also Memorial Addresses of Dr. Booker T. 
Washington in Occasional Papers of the John 
F. Slater Fund, 1916). 

Simmons, William J.: Men of Mark. Geo. M. 
Rewell & Co., Cleveland, Ohio, 1887. 



Appendix 171 

Trotter, James M.: Music and Some Highly 

Musical People. Boston, 1878. 
Williams, George W., History of the Negro Race 

in America from 1619 to 1880. 2 vols. G. P. 

Putnam's Sons. New York and London, 1915. 



IV 

SELECT LIST OP THIRTY-SIX MAGAZINE ARTICLES 

(The arrangement is chronological, and articles of 
imusual scholarship or interest are marked *.) 

* Negro Spirituals, by Thomas Wentworth Higgin- 
son. Atlantic, Vol. 19, p. 685 (June, 1867) 

Plantation Music, by Joel Chandler Harris. Critic, 
Vol. 3, p. 505 (December 15, 1883). 

* The Negro on the Stage, by Laurence Hutton. 
Harper's, Vol. 79, p. 131 (June, 1889). 

Old Plantation Hymns, Hymns of the Slave and 
the Freedman, Recent Negro Melodies: a series 
of three articles by William E. Barton. New 
England Magazine, Vol. 19, pp. 443, 609, 707 
(December, 1898, January and February, 1899). 

Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt's Stories, by W. D. 
Howells, Atlantic, Vol. 85, p. 70 (May, 1900). 

The American Negro at Paris, by W. E. Burghardt 
DuBois. Review of Reviews, Vol. 22, p. 575 
(November, 1900). 

Sojourner Truth, by Lillie Chace Wyman. New 
England Magazine, Vol. 24, p. 59 (March, 1901). 

A New Element in Fiction, by EHzabeth L. Cary. 
Booh Buyer, Vol. 23, p. 26 (August, 1901). 



172 The Negro in Literature and Art 

The True Xegro IMusic and its Decline, by Jean- 

nette Robinson !Murphy. Independent, Vol. bb, 

p. 1723 (July 23, 1903).' 
Biographia — .Airicana, by Daniel IMurray. Voice 

of the Xegro, Vol. 1, p. 1S6 Olay, 1901).! 
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, by William V. Tunnell. 

Colored American Magazine (New York), Vol. 8, 

p. 43 (January, 1905). 
The Xegro of To-Day in iSIusic, hv James W. 

Johnson. Charities, Vol. 15, p. oS (October 7, 

1905). 
WUliam A. Harper, by Florence L. Bentley. Voice 

of the Xegro, Vol. 3, p. 117 (Febniarv*, 1906). 
Paul Laurence Dunbar, by 'Slary Church Terrell. 

Voice of the Xegro, Vol. 3, p. 271 (April, 1906). 
Dunbar's Best Book. Bookman, Vol. 23, p. 122 

(April, 1906). Tribute by W. D. HoweUs in 

same issue, p. 185. 
Chief Singer of the Xegro Race. Current Literature, 

Vol. 40, p. 400 (April, 1906). 
Meta Warrick, Sculptor of Horrors, by William 

Francis O'Donnell. World To-Day, Vol. 13, p. 

1139 (Xovember, 1907). See also Current Liter- 
ature, Vol. 44, p. 55 (January, 1908). 
Afro-American Painter Who Has Become Famous 

id Paris. Current Literature, Vol. 45, p. 404 

(October, 1908). 
*The Story of an Artist's Life, by H. O. Tanner. 

World's Work, Vol. 18, pp. 11661, 11769 (June 

and July, 1909). 
Indian and Xegro in IMusic. Literary Digest, Vol. 

44, p. 1346 (June 29, 1912). 
The Higher ^Music of Xegroes (mainly on Coleridge- 



Appendix 173 

Tavlor). Literary Digest, Vol. 45, p. 565 (October 

5, i912). 
* The Negro's Contribution to the ]Music of America, 

by Natalie Curtis. Craftsman, Vol. 2-3, p. 660 

(March, 1913). 
Legitimizing the ]\Iusic of the Negro. Current 

Opinion, Vol. 54, p. 384 (:\Iay, 1913). 
The Soul of the Black (Herbert Ward's Bronzes). 

Independent, Vol. 74, p. 994 (IMay 1, 1913). 
A Poet Painter of Palestine (H. O. Tanner), by 

Clara T. AlacChesney. International Studio (July. 

1913). 
The Negro in Literature and Art, by W. E. Burg- 

hardt DuBois. Annals of the American Academy 

of Political and Social Science, Vol. 49, p. 233 

(September, 1913). 
Afro-American Folksongs (review of book by 

Henrj' Edward Krehbiel). Nation, Vol. 98, p. 

311 (March 19, 1914). 
Negro Music in the Land of Freedom, and The 

Promise of Negro ^lusic. Outlook, Vol. 106, p. 

611 (March 21, 1914). 
Beginnings of a Negro Drama. Literary Digest, 

Vol. 48, p. 1114 (May 9, 1914). 
George oMoses Horton: Slave Poet, by Stephen B. 

Weeks. Southern Worhnan, Vol. 43, p. 571 

(October, 1914). 
The Rise and Fall of Negro ^linstrelsy, by Brander 

Matthews. Scribiier's, Vol. 57, p. 754 (June. 

1915). 
The Negro in the Southern Short Story, bj^ H. E. 

Rollins. Sewanee Review, Vol. 24, p. 42 (Janu- 

arj^ 1916). 



174 The Negro in Literature and Art 

H. T. Burleigh : Composer by Divine Right, and the 
American Coleridge-Taylor. Musical America, 
Vol. 23, No. 26 (April 29, 1916). (Note also An 
American Negro Whose Music Stirs the Blood 
of Warring Italy. Current Opinion, August, 1916, 
p. 100.) 

The Drama Among Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du- 
Bois. Crisis, Vol. 12, p. 169 (August, 1916). 

Afro-American Folk-Song Contribution, by Maud 
Cuney Hare. Musical Observer, Vol. 15. No. 2, 
p. 13 (February, 1917). 

After the Play (criticism of recent plays by Ridgely 
Torrence), by "F. H." New Republic, Vol. 10, 
p. 325 (April 14, 1917). 



THE END 



INDEX 



Aldridge, Ira, 98. 

B 

Bannister, E. M., 103. 
Batson, Flora, 137. 
Bethune, Thomas, 135-136. 
Braithwaite, William Stanley, 

56-64. 
Brawley, E. M., 70. 
Brown, Anita Patti, 138. 
Brown, Richard L., 104. 
Brown, WiUiam Wells, 66, 69, 

70, 72. 
Burleigh, Harry T.,^ 80, 130- 

131, 138. 
Bush, William Herbert, 134. 
Byron, Mayme Calloway, 138- 

139. 



Charlton, Melville, 134. 
Chesnutt, Charles W., 45-49, 

89, 158. 
Childers, Lulu Vers, 140. 
Clough, Inez, 101. 
Cole, Bob, 99. 
Coleridge - Taylor, 

125—129. 
Cook, Will Marion, 131. 
Cooper, Opal, 100. 
Cromwell, J. W., 71. 
Crummell, Alexander, 66. 

D 

D6d6, Edmund, 129-130. 
Dett, R. Nathaniel, 132. 



Diton, Carl, 132. 

Douglass, Frederick, 4, 34, 

68, 86, 88-91, 95-96. 
Douglass, Joseph, 135. 
Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, 4, 

50-55, 65, 68, 70, 158. 
Dunbar, Alice Ruth Moore 

(Mrs. Nelson), 36, 71, 86. 
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 4, 

33-44, 79, 101, 128, 158. 

E 

Elhott, Robert B., 85. 
ElUs, George W., 67. 

F 

Ferris, WiUiam H., 67. 
Fuller, Meta Warrick, 4, 112- 
124. 

G 

Garnet, Henry H., 66. 
Greenfield, Ehzabeth Taylor, 

136-137. 
Grimk6, Archibald H., 66, 67. 

H 

Samuel, Hackley E. Azalia, 140. 
Hagan, Helen, 134. 
Hare, Maud Cuney, 69, 141. 
Harleston, Edwin A., 104. 
Harper, Frances E. W., 75-76. 
Harper, WilHam A., 103-104. 
Harreld, Kemper, 135. 
Harrison, Hazel, 133. 
Hayes, Roland, 138. 
Heneon, Josiah, 68. 
175 



176 



Index 



Hcnson, Matthew, 69. 
Hogan, Ernest, 99. 
Ilorton, George M., 73-75. 
Hyers, Anna and Emma, 137. 



Jackson, May Howard, 113. 
Jasper, .John, 84-85. 
Jenkins, Edmund T., 132-133, 
Johnson, James W., 79-82, 

130. 
Johnson, J. Rosamond, 80, 

131-182. 
Jones, Sissieretta, 138. 



Richardson, Ethel, 134. 
Richardson, WilUam H., 141. 

S 

Scarborough, Wilham S., 66. 
Scott, William E., 104-105. 
Sejour, Victor, 129. 
Selika, Mme., 137. 
Simmons, Wilham J., 69. 
Sinclair, Wilham A., 67. 
Stafford, A. O., 72. 
Steward, T. G., 71. 
Still, William, 70. 



Lambert, Lucien, 129. 
Lambert, Richard, 129. 
Langston, John M., 69, 85. 
Lawson, Raymond Augustus, 

133. 
Lee, Bertina, 113. 
Lewis, Edmonia, 112-113. 
Locke, Alain, 72. 
Lynch, John R., 71. 

M 

Mason, M. C. B., 85. 
Miller, Kelly, 66-67. 
Moorhead, Scipio, 103. 

N 
NeU, William C, 70. 



Payne, Daniel A., 69. 
Price, J. C, 86. 

R 

Ranson, Reverdy C, 86-87. 



Tanner, Henry O., 4, 105-111. 
Tibbs, Roy W., 134. 
Tinsley, Pedi'o T., 140. 
Trotter, James M., 69. 
Truth, Sojourner, 69, 84. 
Tubman, Harriet, 83. 

W 

Walker, Charles T., 85. 

Walker, David, 66. 

Warberry, Eugene, 129. 

Ward, Samuel Ringgold, 68. 

Washington, Booker T., 4, 54, 
65, 68, 69, 88, 92-96. 

Weir, Fehx, 135. 

Wheatley, Philhs (Mrs. Pe- 
ters), 10-32, 73, 75, 103. 

White, Clarence Cameron, 
135. 

White, Frederick P., 134, 135. 

Whitman, Albery A., 76-79. 

Wilhams, Bert, 99. 

Wilhams, E. C, 101. 

Williams, George W., 70. 

Wilson, Edward E., 72. 

Woodson, Carter G., 71. 

Work, John W., 140. 

Wright, Edward Sterling, 101. 



I 



